


Drinkity/Druggity (Meow Meow Meow)

by rispacooper



Category: Psych
Genre: Character Study, Drunkenness, F/M, First Kiss, Hostage Situation, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three stories about relationships and various forms of love, taking place between Henry and Shawn and Juliet and Carlton in which Shawn and Lassi have some things to work out. There is, as you might notice, a theme of intoxication (or lack thereof).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drinkity/Druggity (Meow Meow Meow)

**Author's Note:**

> Available in podfic as well! 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/9468458

**Drinkity**

 

“What is this, Shawn?” It would take effort to keep his voice level, but it’s too late and Henry’s too tired to bother. Anyway, it’s _Shawn_. With Shawn, Henry had abandoned level a long time ago.

“What is what?” Shawn’s immediate answer doesn’t do anything to persuade him to stay calm. Henry glances over, sees Shawn pressed against the passenger side door, curled around his seat belt, with his head down. “This is me, your son, drunk and needing a ride.” It takes a moment or two too long for Shawn’s eternally moving hands to follow that statement. They come up slowly to tap at Shawn’s chest before sliding to the seat belt.

“And this, this is you, driving an old truck to pick up your drunk son.” Shawn actually lifts his head for that one, glancing at him before swinging his attention slowly and obviously to whatever’s out the window. “And this is Carlton, this is what happens to people when they get too sexually frustrated,” he adds, in close to a whisper, even though Carlton isn’t there and Henry can’t imagine why he would be.

“What?” He can _feel_ his hypertension getting worse. Like it wasn’t enough getting a call from Shawn at close to midnight and then having to drive out to the one bar he’d sworn never to return to as long as his son was in town, now he had to deal with Shawn’s BS as well.

“Never mind.” Shawn’s head is sinking back down, his chin nearly in his chest before he answers, his hands slipping inside the coat over his sweatshirt as though he’s cold. “You don’t get it.”

Henry reaches out and flips on the heater, and the noise it makes as it kicks in almost drowns out the rest. But he can still hear the low, rough tone in Shawn’s voice, how he pushes out a long breath. “No one ever does.”

Whatever Shawn is talking about obviously has him upset, though he can’t expect Henry to know what it is. Shawn had stopped confiding in him around the age of nine, and quit talking to him about anything real at about thirteen—at least until he had come back to town and started asking for Henry’s help on his cases.

They always had work, even if they couldn’t seem to connect with anything else anymore.

It’s the late hour making Henry feel so tired, all the energy wasted in rushing out of bed at the first quiet, “Dad?” on the phone, all the strength needed to guide his adult son onto the seat of the truck, Shawn just as squirmy and uncooperative as a grown man as he was at six or seven, and worse when he’s drunk.

Not that Henry has seen Shawn drunk before, outside of one minor incident when he’d been seventeen. Tonight is something of a surprise, and he wants to ask where Gus is, what set this in motion, but knows better than to try a direct question on his son without distracting him first.

The silence drags out for a moment, too loud with just the turn signal and the heater to fill it, and then the light finally changes and Henry clears his throat.

“I talked to Karen the other day,” he offers, but can’t take his eyes off the road to study Shawn. “She said you haven’t been around much.”

Shawn snorts and Henry feels his mouth tighten, just like that. “Actually, she said that the station seemed too quiet.”

“Three weeks!” Shawn gets back up into a proper sitting position then jerks his head away before Henry can manage more than a quick look at him. “Three weeks and I’m actually _counting_!” No need to worry about silence now. Henry takes his foot off the gas, just a fraction, and ventures another careful study.

Shawn’s shoulders are hunched despite his indignant shout, his posture still heavy with whatever the hell he’d had to drink at that bar. “I mean what _is_ that?” he goes on, putting one hand to the window; the sleeve of his sweatshirt is damp. “I’m waiting, I’m _there_.” He’s focused on his own hand like he’s never seen it before, splaying his fingers over the cool glass. He shifts his body at the same time, or it shifts itself. Sometimes Shawn’s body seems like a separate being altogether from his mind. At Henry’s thought, Shawn’s feet kick out against the floor in silent protest.

Of what, Henry still doesn’t have the slightest clue, other than it involving the station. And he’s too old and too tired to spend his nights trying to figure out what Shawn wants when Shawn probably doesn’t even know.

That Gus must be out of town is his instant assumption, quickly followed by another thought that he shakes off. He doesn’t think there’s anything that Shawn can’t share with Gus. He might pick his times to show it, but Shawn loves that boy, more than maybe even Gus can handle. It’s nearly too much for Shawn to handle; Henry’s not blind to the fact that Shawn doesn’t make lasting relationships easily, that Shawn leaving town for years had as much to do with Henry as it did Shawn’s fear that Gus would leave him.

So he had left first; he’d had to learn something from Madeleine. Being Shawn, he’d picked the most difficult lesson.

Henry lets out a sigh, a little sick with himself for even thinking that about his ex-wife, about Shawn’s mother. And he’s probably wrong. Gus is probably just out of town and Shawn didn’t have anyone else to give him a lift. Maybe Shawn got this drunk all the time and the only lesson he’d ever learned had been the time Henry had taken him to the scene of a drunk driving accident when he’d been a teenager, and whatever lecture he’d been expecting to get from Henry for this was nothing compared to witnessing something like that firsthand.

Only around Shawn could he feel this annoyed and this proud at the same time.

“Where the hell is Gus?” he wonders to cover his confusion, his voice gruff. Shawn will know what he means, has to.

“Didn’t want Gus,” Shawn tells him, rolling his head in his direction, making it very clear that he _thinks_ he’s being very clear. Henry has watched Shawn in action on a case, is painfully aware that what is obvious to Shawn is rarely obvious to other people. That he’d worked hard to make that so doesn’t make occasionally feeling like an idiot in his son’s presence any easier.

“What did you do now?” The accusing question hits Shawn too hard, but Henry only has a moment to think about why, and then Shawn is back to staring out the window. He looks away as well, stares ahead at the mostly empty streets. He’s heading toward the beach without thinking, toward the Psych office.

It’s just the alcohol, he tells himself. Though of course he’s been through too many on the job therapy sessions not to know that there’s usually a _reason_ people drink.

“The weather?” Shawn murmurs, taking his hand from the glass to stare at his palm. “Sports?” It takes Henry too long this time to get that Shawn is offering him new topics for conversation, crap that neither of them really cares about.

It’s too warm with the heat on. There’s the shape of Shawn’s hand on the window, and Henry can feel himself getting itchy under his coat. He flicks the heat off. He’s tired, and that’s why he’s suddenly dizzy, his thoughts running together. He’s tired and he wasn’t expecting to deal with Shawn tonight, that’s why he can’t seem to get his defenses up.

“So you and Gus are good…” He doesn’t make it a question, but he does have to cough before he says it. He can hear Shawn’s voice in his ear again, thick with booze and unusually slow with hesitation.

“Dad?” He had breathed out and Henry had sat up in bed, fumbling for the light, his heart racing. “Dad? I need…a ride.”

Shawn would lie with his last breath.

“And you wanted _me_?” He has to ask this one, not at all sure he’s not dreaming—or letting Shawn lead him down another crazy path. He can hear his own breathing afterwards, like the slight rumble in the engine that means he needs to change the oil soon.

He’s not at a light, but he slows to close to a stop, angles a long look at his son.

Shawn’s eyes are closed, his head against the window now. His hair is spiked up and damp as well from the close heat of the bar, his cheeks flushed with alcohol. He smells of something sharp, most likely vodka, and for the moment even his hands have stopped moving.

“Shawn?”

“I’m not a cop,” Shawn answers. There’s nothing in his voice, no snap or fire, none of the defiance that marked his teenage years even if he’s slouched tiredly in his seat the way he’d once collapsed in the back of a squad car. Henry feels himself straighten anyway, old habits making him grip hard on the steering wheel before he resumes his former speed.

“Yeah, I think you’ve made that more than clear, kid.” He doesn’t mean to be harsh, but he can remember years of training Shawn, of seeing Shawn excel so easily that his future had seemed guaranteed. Now he’s a two-bit hustler, not even dignified enough to be a regular P.I. and as far as Henry’s concerned, P.I.s are a step above criminals most of the time. A conman, pretending to be a psychic for Pete’s sake, when he could have been the best cop this town has ever seen, maybe even gone on to the state, the Feds.

“I don’t need you to remind me, Henry.” Shawn’s voice lifts before his head does, getting momentarily as sharp as the vodka scent around him. “I’m not what _you_ want either, okay? Fine. Why don’t you go adopt your little fishing buddy?”

“My _what_?” His voice is rising too, that easily. Henry grimaces, tosses a pissed off look at his son, opening his mouth to add more only to shut it when he realizes that Shawn is struggling to even sit up. That Shawn is _letting_ him see him struggle to even sit up, or is just too drunk to help himself.

“Three weeks,” Shawn tells him again, kicking out against the baseboard to get any sort of leverage and only sagging back into his coat. His red hooded sweatshirt seems too big on him, falling over his wrists, loose around his chest. He’s breathing hard, too flushed for it just to be alcohol, and almost, Henry reaches out to check for fever.

He swallows instead, slows. He’s at the beach, but the office isn’t Shawn’s pathetic excuse for an apartment. It’s a step up, even if it means Shawn crashed out on an armchair.

“Where am I taking you, kid?” He’s rusty in speaking Shawn, so he has to ask. It’s without distractions, but Shawn is a soft, tangled mess of a man right now, drunk, tired, and upset. But his son had called him.

“Home.” Even sleepy, Shawn presents that fact with a little half-hearted flourish.

“Your “apartment”?” He can hear the quotation marks in his own voice, but doesn’t care; he has offered more than once to help Shawn look for a better place to live, but if it isn’t something he can leave on a moment’s notice, Shawn doesn’t want it. Even though he’s stayed in Santa Barbara for close to three years now, not that Henry’s been counting.

“No.” Shawn fixes him with a frown, and another little, “isn’t it obvious?” flourish. “ _Home_.” He smacks his lips as he says it, five years old again and finishing his Otter pop, and Henry knows his eyes are wide.

Home means his house? Their house? The house he had raised Shawn in, the one he avoided unless he had a case to solve or a dinner to eat?

Henry waits, but for the moment Shawn is only staring back at him, waiting for him to finally get it. Hoping, he wants to say, but can’t quite dare, not even to himself. He settles for turning away, flipping a bitch in the middle of the empty road and heading back toward his house.

Shawn’s room is mostly untouched, though his bed is covered in a box of toys and tapes that Shawn had torn through on a visit a few months ago. Henry hadn’t cleaned it up, that was the kid’s job whether he realized it yet or not. Shawn will have to sleep on the couch, which is at least bigger than an armchair.

“Unless I’m interrupting something?” The glance Shawn gives him is too bold to be sly, but Henry thinks it was meant to be. He ought to demand just how much of what Shawn has had. But Shawn is waving a finger at him and making little noises that he’s pretty sure are meant to be teasing. His gaze is hard, unforgiving for a second, and it isn’t like Henry expected Shawn to forget that he dates occasionally—he never forgets anything—but he hadn’t expected it to be mentioned again.

Shawn only flutters his hand a moment later, brushing the remark away. He even smiles, something dopey and dumb and not at all believable. “Gus says your love life is your business.”

Damn right it is. Henry works his jaw, deciding to let that one ride for now, changing his mind when the wide smile stays in place.

“Can’t you take anything seriously?” It’s a stupid thing to say, because he knows what that smile is, even knows where Shawn had learned it, _when_ he had learned it. Sixteen, and pretending to be fine that another birthday had gone by with only a card from his mother, that he’d _chosen_ to stay at home alone during another dance.

But if Shawn is sober enough to attempt to get his guard up now, then he’s sober enough to know that one little smile isn’t going to cut it.

“That’s what he said.” Shawn breathes out, then forces out a laugh, like there’s a joke in there somewhere Henry’s supposed to get. But not everything is a joke, not even with Shawn. Especially not with Shawn.

“Who?” Too direct, too fast. Shawn must be sobering up, his breath catches, then he leans back, crosses his arms.

“Nothing.” He’s got his chin up, but he pushes out a long breath. “Nobody.” As though Henry didn’t hear that sigh. He might not be as smart as Shawn, but he’s not an idiot. And he knows he’s on the right track when Shawn tries to change the subject. “I don’t suppose you have any cool mysteries to solve? Any poker buddies with missing dogs?”

“Dogs?” Even knowing it’s a diversion, he bites.

“I know, I know, Henry Spencer hates dogs, but some people like them.” He can’t tell if Shawn’s gaze is on him, the truck cabin is too dark unless they’re under a streetlight. But Shawn’s arms stay crossed, it’s a defensive posture, Shawn knows that, he’s just too drunk to care. But he keeps his words light, and that might have worked on anyone else. “Even the cranky ones that snap at you when all you wanted to do was make them happy...”

He should have grabbed a cup of coffee, to be more alert and prepared for this. Henry has another brief surge of anger, waits for it to subside. Shawn is bringing up dogs to distract him.

“Are we really talking about dogs, Shawn?”

“No,” Shawn’s reply says he’s been waiting for Henry to get on board. He jerks up his chin. “We’re talking about cases that Lassi thinks I can handle. Which isn’t any, for three weeks, and now...” Shawn gets his hands up with one sudden motion, drags them through his hair, waves them around in wide, clumsy arcs. “Now he’s out there—they’re out there—and I don’t know what’s happening and he won’t let me…”

Shawn’s mouth snaps closed. His chin goes back down and his arms cross back over his chest. He slides down against the seat, not looking at anything, but especially not Henry.

Henry waits, and pulls onto his street. He parks in his driveway, takes out the keys, and then turns.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Shawn, I rarely do, but since when has someone not letting you do something ever stopped you?” Lord knows he’s delighted in getting around Henry’s authority since…birth.

That gets Shawn’s attention on him, squinting with one eye like something is too bright, then he grins. A moment later there’s a fifth of vodka in his hand and Shawn’s taking a long swig.

He doesn’t know if Shawn somehow snuck it into the bar or talked someone there into selling it to him, doesn’t care. He reaches out and snatches it away, something far too easy to do. Shawn’s grip is weak, his hands slow. He barely even protests when Henry pauses and takes a sip of it himself before screwing the lid back on and shoving it into his coat pocket.

“An open container of alcohol in my car, Shawn?” he snaps as he gets out, slamming his door closed behind him. He’s around in a moment. Shawn has his door open, but is staring down at the ground in consternation.

“You don’t understand,” Shawn informs him before pouring himself to the ground. It’s tempting to let the idiot fall. A face full of gravel might finally teach him something about responsibility, but Henry reaches out in time, gets most of Shawn’s weight plastered to his side.

It’s a sign of how far gone Shawn is that he isn’t shoving Henry away. He just sags against him while Henry locks and closes that door too and starts to lead them inside.

“You forgot to get your mail today,” Shawn points out, not that Henry saw him looking toward the mailbox. “And you made meatloaf today and didn’t invite me.” All of which Henry ignores, knowing too well that it’s not any magic or psychic abilities. Shawn doesn’t even seem to notice he’s doing it, can’t seem to turn it off even with too much liquor in his system.

“Your neighbor has a new cat, bet that’s irritating. Henry Spencer, with a cute, cuddly furry, little kitty coming to his door.”

“Shut up, Shawn.” It’s useless, but he says it anyway as he gets them through the door, into the living room, where he deposits Shawn on the couch.

“I see stuff he’s not going to,” Shawn just continues, shutting his eyes and practically humming the words. “There could be terrorists taking over boy’s schools and Alan Rickman with a German accent and he won’t even notice until it’s too late without me there.” His eyes open, focus on something Henry can’t see. With this much light, they’re glassy, dazed. Shawn’s stubble seems more pronounced, like he hasn’t shaved all day, not even that morning.

“He’s way too serious. And old. And weird.” Shawn explains without explaining anything. Henry tries to stay motionless, but Shawn focuses on him anyway, abruptly. “Like seriously weird. I must be out of my mind.” He tilts his head to one side and stops and Henry realizes he’s supposed to answer.

When Shawn was a kid, and Henry got asked a question he didn’t have an answer for, he usually changed the subject. It had almost never worked, but it’s worth a shot now.

He pauses, then bends down, half-sitting on the coffee table.

“Let’s get your shoes off.” Shawn’s shoes are brightly-colored sneakers, laced so loosely he can just slip them off. He’d liked Velcro as a kid, especially the blue ones with those stupid cat people on them. He’d worn them until they were too big for them and had holes in the toes, having a fit when Henry had finally thrown them out.

He can see his hand again, so big next to Shawn’s small bare foot, because of course Shawn had refused to wear socks too, not when the idiot on Miami Vice hadn’t.

Henry’s throat is rough, blocked. He coughs and looks up after he sets the shoes on the floor. Shawn’s eyes are on him, surprisingly steady.

“Thunder Thunder Thunder Thundercats!” he sings, quietly, then goes silent before he moves his legs up and onto the couch.

Henry’s not sure, but that might be one of the last times he was allowed to freely touch his son. At least, the last time he can clearly remember. Shawn had pushed him away after Madeleine had left, and Henry had let him.

“You know, you could tie your shoes once in a while.”

“Should I wear a suit too?” Shawn pops back instantly, and Henry is standing and ticked before he can think better of it, before the way Shawn had asked can finally sink in. Shawn is blinking at the light, trying to maintain eye contact and failing. His chin is up, but there’s no flare of anger in his eyes.

“Can I be a lion tamer, Dad?” He’d asked it in the same voice, a long time ago, after wanting to also be a fireman and a superhero and a bounty hunter. It was no use ever asking Shawn what he wanted to be when he grew up, he probably still didn’t know.

But a guy in a suit, a cop, that was ridiculous. Because it would be the same game of dress up, yet again. What Shawn is, what he has been, is a guy in sloppy shirts and jeans who hadn’t held down a job longer than two months at a time until he’d come back home.

Shawn is still waiting, one eyebrow up in a way that he probably thinks is sarcastic or something. It just makes him look curious. Too curious. And Henry is seriously thinking of taking the vodka bottle and tossing it. Shawn isn’t going to be happy to wake up and realize that he’d been this open. Not that anyone else would consider this all that open.

“No,” he says shortly, when an answer is still expected of him, and Shawn’s eyes widen.

Henry’s turning before he has to face that, wiping his hands and then his jaw. Maybe he ought to go clean up, make Shawn something to eat, go to bed and leave Shawn to sleep it off.

Shawn is already leaning back into the cushions, his feet up. He’s got one arm on the back of the couch, his hand spread out and motionless. Apparently even Shawn’s mind has to slow down sometime.

Henry waits, breathing quietly until Shawn’s eyelids drift down, and then takes a step toward the kitchen.

“Dad?”

There it is, soft and thick, just like before. Young. Not Henry. _Dad_.

He stops. Has to think to speak.

“Haven’t heard that since you were…whatever. Ten.” Not in that voice. He looks down, wonders if Shawn is playing him, except Shawn’s eyes are still closed. His hand twitches on the couch.

Henry should hesitate, he knows that, and feels his jaw tighten again to think that he’s looking for traps with his _son_. He doesn’t think Shawn would call for him like that if he didn’t mean it, not even drunk would Shawn want to hand him that much ammunition.

He pauses again, steps back, then sits down carefully on the couch by Shawn’s feet. Shawn instantly moves his feet aside, then slides them back toward the heat. He grumbles a little, at what Henry has no idea, and opens his eyes. It shouldn’t be so awkward, to sit in silence with his son.

But work, they always have work.

“What is it, Shawn, a case?”

“Please, as though a case would ever bother me this much.” Shawn responds breezily, a touch too loudly because Henry has seen Shawn freak out over cases. “Psh.” He brings the hand up from the cushion, waves it, lets it drop. Henry just rolls his eyes. Against a Shawn this drunk it’s no contest, and he’s starting to think he was right after all, that Shawn must not get this plastered that often, not if he gets like this.

He pokes him in the leg. Shawn blinks, startled.

“Shawn you may be the oldest man in the world who still has _Dukes of Hazzard_ underwear but I can still tell when you’re lying. If you don’t want to talk about it, then don’t, but don’t call me in the middle of the night to have me listen to you.”

“ _Fine_.” The flash of temper is undisguised, real. Henry’s head goes back and Shawn narrows his eyes, works his jaw. He looks away a second later, at the ceiling, the carpet, the damn _table_. The anger is abruptly gone. “Go.” The word is heavy, hits Henry full force in the gut.

Shawn really expects him to, he can tell suddenly, as all the wind is knocked right out of him. Shawn expects Henry to just leave him.

Maybe Shawn expects everyone to leave him, the old thought comes back, harder, and as blows go, Shawn isn’t doing too bad for a drunk.

Henry slides his hands down his thighs, knows his palms are damp. He looks at the ceiling, the carpet, at his coffee table. He could almost sigh, because this means a sleepless night, and this is not the way he would have chosen, but Shawn had let the words out, had picked the time and place, like the demanding little snot that he is.

“Okay, kid,” he gives in, swallows. “You called me. Shoot.”

Shawn doesn’t move. But he heard. After a moment he slides a look over, careful, even with a second wave of vodka bringing another rush of pink to his face. Henry did that, he knows, he made his son this afraid.

“Did you know…?” Shawn bursts back into motion, leaning back and resting his head on one cushion like a pillow. It keeps his gaze away, which is not a coincidence. “That engineered fruit is the new trend in both juice and wine?”

Who gives a crap? is the answer Henry _just_ bites back. He shifts to hold onto his patience and waits. “Juice! People will kill over that, can you believe it? I mean, I like pineapple, but I don’t kill over it.”

“So this _is_ about a case?” The mention of murder probably shouldn’t calm his rapidly beating heart, but it does. Henry sits back too; Shawn adjusts his feet, but doesn’t say a thing about losing some space on the couch. “Lay it out for me.”

At the order, Shawn obediently shuts his eyes.

“They are these plum…apricot things…and they were growing them with the grapes at the vineyard—it does something for flavor, Gus says—and it was getting popular locally, but the owner wouldn’t advertise, wanted to keep it small.” Shawn stops, starts, and there’s only a hint to tell Henry to pay attention. Shawn’s voice is getting flat.

“And then he dies, and his daughter goes to the police, because it seemed weird to her. Her mother didn’t. Go to the police that is. Not seem weird. Not her stepmother, either, her mother. Lassi said Cinderella was just a fairy tale, and I guess he was right. She likes big purses.”

“Cinderella?” Henry drags it out, because that’s what Shawn wants. To talk, since he brought them both here, but he’s not quite ready to confess yet.

“No wicked stepmother.” Shawn’s shoulders drop.

“So it’s the mother.”

“I _know_.” One hand makes a familiar, if slow, motion at Shawn’s head to indicate that he did in fact, know that. Henry breathes through his nose.

“So tell the police that. Murder is no time to be messing around, Shawn, these are people’s lives…”

The visible flinch shuts Henry up better than a punch to the mouth.

Eyes closed, Shawn pulls in on himself, curling into the couch, sliding his feet away from Henry. His lips part as he breathes, in and out, and then he opens his eyes to glare.

“Like I don’t know that,” he insists, far too serious to be Shawn, then tosses out a hand, and another joke that falls flat. “And I promised Gus I’d solve the case in time to get home in time to watch _American Duos_.” He has to force the words out. His hands hit the couch and then he’s glaring down at them. They play with the edge of his sweatshirt as he mutters. “Anyway I already did.”

“Crime isn’t funny, Shawn.”

“Sometimes it is,” Shawn hums, licking his mouth as though he’s going to find more vodka there. “Like when tall, overly serious detectives end up…”

“Shawn.”

“I’m not a cop, Dad!” The reaction is loud and juvenile. Shawn flops like a fish for a moment, without much energy. He could just get up, but hasn’t seemed to realize it. “I want a drink,” he adds immediately, just as loud, twitches at seeing Henry’s frown. His mouth moves into a smile that they both know he doesn’t mean. He wonders who would fall for it after knowing Shawn for any length of time. Only someone who wants to keep thinking Shawn is a carefree idiot. “Something tutti-fruitti and strong.”

If he could manage it without yelling, he’d tell Shawn to knock it off, to stop trying to be funny all the time.

“Dad.” There it is again, the hushed note in Shawn’s voice that drives right through him, makes him more careless than he should be, makes him look over at Shawn and clench his teeth tight on any orders for Shawn to get to the damn point.

Shawn glances away from a look like that, as he’s learned to do, one lesson Henry swears he never meant to teach him. But he has to say it, because the little idiot just isn’t getting it.

“Not everything has to be funny.”

“I know,” Shawn is using the “isn’t it obvious?” tone again. Henry lets it slide. Shawn is scowling. “…But how else am I supposed to get the grumpy frown off his—your face?” He reshapes his scowl into a grin, lifts his eyebrows innocently. His eyes are too bright.

Now Henry looks down, rubs at his head. He sighs twice before he can even try to look back up.

“Ah,” he says, trying to be sympathetic, but he can feel his eyes narrowing. His face is stinging with a blush he doesn’t want. He is definitely tossing the vodka bottle.

He coughs, and Shawn crosses his arms.

“Is this about…” Shawn looks at him, his jaw sticking out like it did when he was seventeen and got caught sneaking out, again. When he’d been thirteen and Henry had found the magazines. _Those_ magazines, and Shawn had glared up at him through his embarrassment. He can do the same even if it kills him, meet Shawn’s gaze. “Is this is about a _boy_ , Shawn?”

And why couldn’t it have been a girl? Like that pretty junior detective always following Carlton around. Shawn had been making eyes at her before, or at least Henry had thought he’d been making eyes at her. Not that Shawn had ever been especially choosy about who he made eyes at. And not that she had any reason to take his idiot son seriously.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts by the realization that Shawn is staring at him, and, drunk or not, clearly reading everything that’s on his face. He’s not the only one with his guard down.

Henry clears his throat and Shawn blinks a few times.

His hair really is a mess, even by his standards. Henry reaches out, then quickly pulls his hand back before he can smooth it down. Shawn’s mouth twitches anyway and Henry almost feels his do the same.

“You…” Shawn hums, scratches his nose, plops his hand down into his lap. “You don’t fish with Ca…Lassiter anymore,” he remarks, not precisely asking, since he would have known before he’d asked. The statement still doesn’t make any sense.

“What?”

“Why not? Carl…Lassi is the son you always wanted, right?” Shawn fingers count out reasons against his sweatshirt. “He’s a cop, a detective, with a career. And he never makes jokes.” Shawn sighs, settles back. “…Surprisingly strong under those bad suits, nice ass,” he mumbles into the air, sighs again.

“Shawn…” Henry shakes his head, waves his hands a little too, totally lost. “Carlton just needed lessons. He could be a great fisherman someday…” Shawn’s knowing little snort stops him short.

The last of the liquor has definitely hit Shawn. He breathes hard, lets his mouth fall open even when he isn’t speaking.

“He’s so serious, like all the time. I thought…I just wanted…” Shawn cracks one eye, then two, looks hopeful. “I’m thirsty.”

Henry rolls his eyes. He could use a drink too, but Shawn is getting water. “Fine, _water_.” He gestures, then stands up. “You…need something to eat?”

“Your fish is crooked.” Is the answer he gets, with another heavy-handed wave. Henry almost asks what the hell, then sees his stuffed fish on the wall is leaning slightly to one side. Shawn must have catalogued it as he’d walked in, along with anything else he might need as a distraction.

Not for the first time Henry wishes he could too, with half of Shawn’s skill, so he could make the leap he needs to make here, because Shawn is taking his sweet time. Maybe he’s too drunk to focus, or maybe it’s something else. But at that Shawn opens his eyes and sweeps another look around.

“A fish on a plaque, but nothing for me.”

“You never won anything in school, Shawn, not that you couldn’t have.” Henry has an “isn’t an obvious?” tone of his own. He can’t help snapping and Shawn’s head is back up, his eyebrows drawn into a frown.

“Oh, just shut _up_! I _knew_ you were going to do this, give me one more failure speech, telling me how I could have been the best cop ever…” His hands fly out, to push him up this time, and even if it’s unfair, Henry shoves him back down. After all, he’s not the one who made Shawn get drunk.

He sticks out one finger and waves it. Shawn’s so drunk his eyes follow it.

“The only thing that disappoints me about you, kiddo, is the way you keep disappointing yourself.” He’s breathing fast when he’s finished. His gut feels tight. “Try sticking to something for once and see what happens.”

Shawn is blinking up at him, mouth open like the damn crooked fish on the wall. His gaze is bright, dazed, and so naked that Henry knows he should look away.

“I’ve pushed,” Shawn tells him, voice rising unevenly up and down, like he’s having a “vision.” “Really pushed. But he has hasn’t… I’ve tried.” Tried. The echo of that makes Henry pull back his hand, curl his fingers into his palm. Shawn hasn’t had to try for anything since elementary school, hasn’t wanted to. “But I’m not a cop.”

Shawn licks his mouth. It’s tempting to let him have another drink, let him forget. Henry curls his hands tighter. Ignores his son’s pain for the moment, for his own good.

“You know who _is_ a cop?” Shawn asks him, round-eyed and scarily intent. Henry breathes, decides to play along for the moment, like Shawn playing magician in the backyard.

“No, Shawn, who?”

“Lassiter!” Shawn flourishes his hands at the announcement, flushed with revelation and liquor. All he needs is a top hat with a rabbit in it. Henry frowns anyway, more carefully this time, spins a hand in a “get on with it, kid” gesture.

“Of course he is.”

“No, like a real cop.” Shawn just goes on, not even trying to smile. He’s studying the wall. “He’s _real_ , Dad.” Shawn leans his head to one side, replaying something behind his eyes. “He’s not playing, doesn’t want to be cheered up even…even when it’s for his own good. But that’s okay, except that he’s going to have a heart attack.” Shawn scowls, looks down. “It’s okay, because I like how focused he gets,” Shawn’s voice is all wonder, surprised at what’s under the tree like he never is anymore. “His eyes…” He stops and Henry has to remember that Shawn is talking about _Carlton_. “He’s awkward and awful and Gus can say what he wants, but when he moves he’s like…he’s like…”

“…Shawn…” Shawn’s gone off track, he has to call him back. Only Shawn is breathing hard, ignoring him.

“…And when he gets angry I _know_ he’s holding back and still, there’s so much _there_ , he’s there, all the time. He doesn’t hide.” Honesty has his son thrown, truly lost at the idea of _truth_ , and Henry clenches his jaw, keeps listening. “And I can tell what he’ll be like with me…and he could see it too, I know it. When he looks at me, he wants…but he won’t…”

“Shawn!” That is beyond too much information. Henry flinches back, not that Shawn seems to notice. Of course he must, he does, might realize it in a moment, what he’s just given away, not that Henry can quite believe it. His memory is imperfect, and he’s tired, but Shawn, in one way or another, has been talking about this since he’d first got into the truck.

Shawn wants Carlton. _Carlton_. Henry might just be a little sick.

Why couldn’t it have been O’Hara, or even Gus, he demands silently a moment later. He’d been halfway prepared for Gus. But _no_ , Shawn has to be different, do things his own way, the harder way, even though he never thinks so at the time.

Carlton. His mind loops back on itself. Older. Troubled. Divorced, or practically. A cop. A _man_. Jesus.

Shawn is still speaking, mumbling to the couch, to him, eyes once again drifting closed, as though he’s dreaming, having a vision, whatever.

“I didn’t see it at first, I just saw you, all those years...”

Henry focuses sharply on his son, not that Shawn gives him any sign that he senses the look. Maybe he doesn’t. And maybe prison actually reforms people. “He’s everything you want, but he’s not happy either. I could… I couldn’t be that, but I could…”

Henry coughs and Shawn opens his eyes, looks right into his. His body sags, a tired frown skipping across his face. “I didn’t want to be what you wanted…but…I wanted this.”

“Wanted what, kid?” He doesn’t miss that Shawn chose the past tense, fights down the conflicting feelings of love and anger. Shawn giving in at last, Shawn giving in at _all_. Shawn might come down on him for keeping on him about his career, his life, but he only wanted the kid to know that he hadn’t given up on him, that Spencers don’t give up.

But Carlton…Jesus.

“To...help.” Another lie, or at least, not the entire truth, but Henry’s thinking he’s had enough complete truth for the night. So far he’s learned that his son has been undone by Carlton Lassiter. That Shawn likes…is potentially in love with…possibly the last person Henry would have chosen for him.

Though Carlton is Head Detective, he admits, if only to himself. And has a steady job. And owns his own home.

“The thing is I thought I was Madonna in _Who’s That Girl_ only really I was Jon Cryer in _Pretty in Pink_. Or worse!” Shawn suddenly sits up to grab his shoulder. “What if I’m Farmer Ted?” His eyes are wide; evidently, whatever he’s talking about is serious. But then he’s shaking his head and falling back. He lets one arm cover his face, just a touch too dramatically, in Henry’s opinion. 

“Speak English, Shawn, or I’m going to bed.” 

“No, there’s no way I’m Farmer Ted.” Shawn argues with himself, one hand moving against his chest as he speaks. “I would never dance like that.” A moment later the arm comes off his face and Shawn is trying to convince Henry, laying out the facts of his case. It’s the same every time he knows something but can’t prove it.

That he’s usually right doesn’t make it any less irritating. 

“He doesn’t touch me anymore,” Shawn insists and Henry squeezes his eyes shut, not needing any more of that kind of talk. “Not like that,” Shawn reads his expression, reassures him, “but when he’s angry. And he’s still angry with me. He’s a big…blue…stick bug of rage.”

“Now _that_ I believe.” Not the stick bug part, that’s the vodka talking. But he regrets the sarcasm, seeing Shawn blink and look away from him. 

A moment later he’s scowling, a line between his eyes and his lower lip jutting out. “Not even to throw me against a wall, even when I really, really want him to.”

“Shawn!” He’s up and off the couch, scrubbing at his face with his hands.

“I want it.” He doesn’t look, hears teenaged Shawn in the voice, challenging and stupid, blind to logic or reason. His chin will be up, a clear demand for Henry to deal with it will be in his eyes, if Henry feels like checking for it.

Except what he feels like doing is telling Shawn to end this whole insane conversation and to sleep it off, because there’s no way a sober Shawn would want to continue this, and they can both pretend it never happened. Or, at the very least, he’d like to order Shawn to stop all talk about Carlton, and what he wants him to do to him. Forever.

But before he can even get his mouth open and his head back up, Shawn’s voice drops.

“I _tried_ and I _pushed_ and he pushed _back_.” Shawn seems momentarily confused by this, “…and now they’re out there without me.” He lifts his eyes back to Shawn in time to see Shawn’s hands flutter against the couch, fall slowly back down into stillness.

He hopes like hell that Shawn appreciates all this restraint in the morning, when Henry will be hammering to straighten that fish during what promises to be a truly amazing hangover.

It takes a couple of tries before he can speak. His skin is burning.

“Look…I know…sometimes you lo…” Shawn’s eyes land on him, unnervingly serious and Henry gulps down that uncomfortable word before going on. “…You _like_ a woma…someone, and no matter what you do, they just never want you back.”

“Every time he looks at me, his eyes are…disappointed.” Shawn makes a face, wrinkles his nose. His mouth turns up for part of a second, then falls flat. “At least you still yell at me.”

Finally. Getting to the bottom of things with a drunken Shawn has only taken an hour. An incredibly frustrating and infuriating hour. But they are finally getting somewhere. He’ll take progress with Shawn where he can get it…and if that involves Lassiter…then…it involves Lassiter…and that’s fin…well he can live with it.

He sits down, again, and makes Shawn make room for him. Shawn lets him.

“Things aren’t always what they appear.” He feels like a failure as a father by just offering that piece of crap cliché, as though it means anything if Carlton doesn’t love his son back. It might show good sense, but it still makes him want to punch the man in the mouth. “But you can get over it, move on to someone else…” The way he’s gotten over Madeleine…which is…

Spencers don’t give in for a reason. Something his son must know something about, because Shawn gives him a look of absolute disbelief. Another day and Henry might have even called it betrayal. Never mind that Shawn has run from every other relationship that Henry knows about it. Apparently, the idea that he could leave hasn’t occurred to him yet, and Henry is annoyed with himself for even putting the idea in his son’s head.

Henry grimaces and rubs a hand over his head; he’s never missed his hair so much. It would have given him something to pull now. He really doesn’t get what makes Carlton so special, and aside from comments about the man’s ass best forgotten, Shawn isn’t likely to tell him. _He pushed back_. What the hell did that even mean?

And now what? Shawn clearly doesn’t want advice from him, never has. So that notion is impossible.

“I don’t understand, Shawn.” The moment he says it, Shawn pulls back from him, leaves, just like that. For a moment his body isn’t moving, but he’s pulling away, Henry can feel it.

“That makes two of us…Henry.” Shawn’s mouth twists as he shifts to the side, into the cushions. He buries his face against one, scoots so that his feet aren’t against Henry’s leg anymore. “I’m thirsty.”

“I’m not giving you more booze, Shawn. You’ve had enough.” Easy enough to respond like he always does, a little too loud and insistent. Shawn pops a hand free to wave it dismissively at him, then slides it under his chin.

He’s breathing evenly in and out, looking ready to pass out. It’s a good act, if he didn’t know Shawn. It means that Shawn is done with this, done with him. Whatever he’d wanted, he hasn’t gotten it.

What the heck does Shawn expect him to do here, he wonders with another despairing spark of anger, wave his hands and make it all better? Without any information? He’s not a psychic either.

Henry runs his hands down his legs, wipes away any dampness before he stands up. Shawn’s legs instantly stretch out to take up the space. Without a word, Henry goes to the hall, grabs a blanket from the closet there and drapes it over him.

“I’ll take you to pick up your deathtrap in the morning,” he comments, the distance getting easier. He moves away to turn off lights, and the kitchen light is all there is. It’s enough for him to see Shawn curled up on his couch, face mostly hidden, his legs already kicking away the blanket. He looks about five years old.

Aw hell. It doesn’t matter if Shawn is playing him.

“You want Carlton.” He says it out loud. Actually says it. It isn’t as strange as it ought to be, but he’s lived with Shawn for decades. Strange things ought to be normal now. Shawn’s breathing stutters, his body stilling, though he doesn’t look up. “So you…pushed…”

Henry doesn’t take his eyes away. “And you think he wanted you.”

“ _Know_ ,” Shawn corrects quietly, then hesitates. Doubting himself, which is stupid, because Shawn doesn’t make mistakes like that. Henry nods, seeing what Shawn has given him and restating the facts, just to be clear.

“Because he…pushed back…?”

“Jules ran away,” Shawn murmurs, making Henry pause, momentarily as diverted as Shawn usually is by too much information. Jules is the blond detective, he knows that much. He didn’t know that Shawn had made a move on her or that she’d turned him down. Or even why it mattered. Shawn probably made a move on lots of people.

Maybe they never… Hell it’s just too late for these kinds of thoughts. He has to focus, stop thinking about these details for now. He coughs.

“And now he doesn’t… Because he’s mad.” Which means, as this is Shawn, that…

“I screwed it up,” Shawn admits on a soft, tiny sigh, his face still buried.

Henry just crosses his arms and waits. It could be a long wait, but he’s awake now, and he’s got all night.

Shawn’s second sigh is noisier.

“I _may_ have solved the case and not told him right away.” Ah. Henry nods though Shawn can’t see. The thing with the fruit and the wicked mother. But withholding information until it’s useful is standard practice for Shawn.

“That’s every case,” he adds encouragingly when Shawn doesn’t go on. “It’s hardly enough to get Carlton this upset.” The man had to be surprisingly reasonable, and patient, to have put up with Shawn this much when Shawn had been flinging crap at him left and right, as Henry knows he has been. So far only Gus had managed that, so there must be more that Shawn isn’t telling him. “And…”

Shawn sucks in a breath. “And he had to…well he said…I made everything a game.” His head comes up, his eyes wide and dark while he goes on. “But I pushed, and he _pushed back_. Now…”

“Now you haven’t been allowed to get near him for three weeks.” Things finally falling into place, this must be what the criminals Shawn catches feel like.

“No, now he’s out there, without me. Fighting crime! In danger!”

“That bothers you?” The question slips out, he can’t help it. Shawn actually squirms in place, twisting the blanket around him like he’s going to somehow avoid the question, or what it might mean.

“Dad!” he gasps out, suddenly scandalized to be discussing this, and Henry sees. Sees everything, or close enough to it. Clearly it does bother Shawn, it bothers him a lot, thinking of Carlton alone and in danger.

Henry just wants to smile. Because Shawn is thinking of the future. A future, and one with Carlton, but Shawn is thinking of the future just the same, and more than that, Shawn is thinking of someone else.

Oh this conversation is still embarrassing, and he still wants to read the riot act to Carlton for rejecting his son, but there’s a loosening in his stomach in a place he hadn’t even realized was tight. This isn’t a matter of potentially, Shawn _is_ in love, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

Well that took longer than he’d thought it would, but it turns out Shawn is as human as anyone else. As frightened as anyone else. So he’d done what he’d always done when threatened, and now he’s surprised that things had turned out like they always had. Except…had they? Shawn is hardly a reliable source.

It’s not hard to wipe any traces of a grin off his face at that and scowl down at Shawn’s pathetically dejected form.

“So he doesn’t trust you, Shawn, who can blame him?” Shawn’s head tilts back in surprise, hurt, but Henry didn’t raise his son to give in that easily. He jabs a finger in his direction. “You have to show him that he can.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” doesn’t even begin to describe his tone. Even drunk, Shawn’s eyes go round and his head snaps back. He blinks rapidly, then shakes his head. His hands go out over the cushions, hold onto them.

“It isn’t going to be easy, not for either of you.”

“No, I… He….” Shawn puts his palms up, changes the subject. “Henry, when you were…did you ever have to tell someone…?”

“Tell them what?” One in the morning, and Shawn is still chasing tangents.

“That someone was dead? Or that someone they love is a killer?” Shawn’s fingers trail over the cushion. He looks down.

The “real cop” stuff from earlier makes a lot more sense now. Henry opens his mouth, closes it, imagines Lassiter upset about what he had to go do, and Shawn just not getting it, or getting it a second too late to stop his idiot, smartass mouth. Meaning well and screwing it up anyway.

Shawn can’t see, but speaks when Henry finally nods.

“It hurt him and I was just trying to…”

“Make him happy, I understand.” Shawn. His son, Shawn, is in love. “I’ll be damned.”

Maybe he ought to hold onto that vodka, just in case. Maybe he ought to drink the rest himself, right now.

Shawn’s head is falling into the cushions despite everything, his stubborn refusal to give in, even to sleep. If he’s not going to do that, than he sure as hell isn’t going to let Carlton get away from him if it means that much to him.

But for now he’s drifting off into memories, dreams that hopefully aren’t painful. He’ll have enough of that in the morning—which is a lot sooner than it was when he had started all of this.

Shawn’s eyes are closed. Henry waits without moving, watching Shawn’s breathing even out, listening to the sound. He’d always enjoyed the sight of Shawn sleeping, and not just because it was usually the only time his son was quiet.

But somewhere, his bed is calling his name, and it’s been an exhausting night.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, alright, kid? Get some sleep.” He can reach out as he passes, and does, putting a hand into Shawn’s hair. Shawn snorts into the cushion but doesn’t give him any sass or crazy reference to anything he used to watch on TV.

They both know this won’t mean anything tomorrow, even if Shawn remembers. They’ll both act like it never happened, eat breakfast, go pick up Shawn’s motorcycle, and then Shawn will avoid this house for a week or two.

But since it won’t matter anyway, Henry stops. He keeps his voice low.

“Just because you’re not a cop doesn’t mean you don’t help, Shawn. You’re real too, kid. Show him that.”

Shawn’s mouth curves up in a wide smile; he’s not even a little bit asleep.

“Or maybe _I’m_ Molly Ringwald, talking to her dad downstairs and Lassi is Jake Ryan...”

Henry sighs.

“Just try not to be too big of an idiot, if you want him to believe you.” And that is it, he’s too old for all of this. He’s going to bed, where hopefully he will forget all mention of Carlton Lassiter’s strength and eyes and ass and whatever it is he does with walls.

Shawn only makes small snuffling noises as he walks away, his blanket to his chin the way he’d always liked as a kid. Whatever it means to call Carlton a beau-hunk, Henry has no idea. And honestly, he doesn’t want to know.

All he does know is that Carlton had better not mess this up, or Henry will show him what it means to push back.

 

**Druggity**

 

“Carlton?” The voice is a little quieter than he’d been expecting, but Carlton opens his eyes for it anyway. He immediately squints and shuts them again. There’s a steady, dull pounding at the back of his head, and almost no light, but what there is makes his eyes water.

The world is dark, silent enough for sleep, except for the sense that something isn’t quite right. Carlton knows that feeling, every cop does, and tries to force his attention back to…whatever it had been, whoever it had been, saying his name.

No one says his name. No one except his mother, and his ex, and Shawn Spencer.

He sets his jaw, feels a slice of…something…echo through him. It’s as dull as everything else is tinted too bright, and he frowns for it, for the silence that has stretched for over three weeks now. The silence of his life without Spencer in it.

Damn idiot. Always _pushing_.

“Carlton, are you with me?” There’s that voice again, just a little annoying. But something still isn’t right, so Carlton tries to turn toward it, shifts onto something hard and cold. Actually, everything is cold.

He can’t find his hands, his legs. No, they’re heavy, but there. He just can’t move them.

His heart slams against his ribcage at the thought and Carlton forces his eyes open, blinking at shadows and shapes as they emerge, form into solid walls, a floor, right at his level.

“I’m on the floor,” he says, only knowing it’s his voice by the rasping ache it leaves in his throat to speak. O’Hara’s upside down face is suddenly frowning down at him, until her upside down frown becomes a right side up wobbly smile, or something. He is pretty sure his head hurts. “Juliet!” He blinks at her too, wondering why there are dark smudges on her cheeks and neck. “Why the hell am I on the floor?”

“Thank God,” is all she says, which isn’t helpful, he thinks. Not when he’s still down here. But then she blinks too, and the wobbly, shaky, yet somehow perky smile vanishes from her face.

Spencer’s smiles are never perky and he has a lot of smiles. Small secret ones and big wide open ones. Inviting smiles and tiny fake smiles of reassurance for poor Guster and any other sucker who might get in his way.

Any _other_ sucker. Carlton is more careful than that. Or at least, he’s pretty sure he is.

Except that he likes it when Spencer is unexpectedly pleased with him, might even secretly love it. Because then Spencer beams bright and happy across the station, blotting out all the miserable days and nights spent alone in his house pouring over case files. Like Carlton has done something amazing, even if he never knows what it is.

“Carlton,” Juliet calls his attention back and Carlton obediently stares up at her. It isn’t just her smile that seems wobbly. She sways as she leans over him, or maybe that’s the room spinning. “Lassiter, your head is bleeding.”

“It is?” He spends a moment watching his hand come up, which can move after all, which is good, and then spends another moment staring at the dark, shiny stuff all over it, which is bad.

For a second, even in the dark, his vision goes all red and green, like he’s going to be sick.

Carlton squeezes his eyes shut, because he’s not going to be sick. He can think of a lot of ways he can humiliate himself in this moment, but throwing up in front of his junior partner isn’t one of them.

“Just hold on,” Juliet orders quietly, and he looks in time to see her shrugging out of her jacket. She seems pale. Maybe she’s going to puke too. Carlton uses his hand to pat her arm, then stares at the blackish red streak he left on her shirt.

“Sorry,” he grunts, and wonders why O’Hara immediately bends over to peer into his face again. Her arms are moving, and a moment later when the pounding gets momentarily worse, two O’Haras swim in front of his eyes, and her fierce, worried frown is doubly troubling.

Carlton doesn’t like to see them—her—frown. He doesn’t like to see anybody frown, really, except for criminals and scumbags. And what she’s doing, that’s not a cop frown meant to scare lowlifes into submission.

His world spins again and then he can feel something warm and soft pressed to his skull. Juliet breathes out.

“I think you need stitches.”

“Your wrists are red,” Carlton observes right back at her, pleased with himself. Juliet—and when did she become Juliet? That doesn’t sound right—puts a hand to his forehead. He doesn’t have a fever, he’s cold, which he would tell her if she’d just ask. As it is he’s shivering at how hot her hand feels.

“They tied me up, but I got loose,” she informs him. She’s shivering, like she’s cold too, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Don’t you…what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Shawn watching us leave the station,” he answers immediately, and both O’Haras are back in his face, definitely worried.

Carlton brings his hand up again, touching carefully at his hairline, following a sticky, wet trail back to something that makes the room go light when he pushes at it. He gasps, pain streaking all the way down to his feet and back, and then grits his teeth to stop anymore sounds from escaping.

Station. He’d been at the station, he and O’Hara, finally getting a lead on a case…on a kidnapping spree…local millionaires and…

Spencer had been there, waiting as he had passed, attempting a wave before Carlton had turned away, and the careful, hopeful smile on the man’s face had dropped out of sight.

That hurts too, and Carlton grabs a handful of something, his pant leg, and crushes it in his grip. Tries to, his grip is weak.

After the station, they had come out here, the edge of town, a halfway demolished building, awaiting retrofitting and renovation. He’d turned a corner and…

“Where are we?” His voice is rough, not that he cares. He wants to sit up, pushes his hands down onto icy cold cement and falls back when he can’t find the strength to get himself up. At the little motion, the world tilts again, O’Hara going in and out of focus.

She puts out her hands too, both of them, feeling the ground carefully before she shifts. She’s looking around so Carlton does as well, squinting over a shadowed but empty room. Bare cement walls and a short stairway leading to a raised cement section, almost a platform. There are tiny windows, painted over, the only light peeking through the patches that some jackass had been too lazy to paint properly.

On the other side there’s one door. It looks like metal. It looks heavy.

Carlton pushes out air, sucks some more back in.

“Why the hell didn’t they just kill us?” He’s sure as hell going to kill them, if he gets his hands on them. Just as soon as he can move.

“That isn’t their MO, remember?” Juliet tells him, pausing to look down at herself. “They drug their victims, return them alive once the ransom is paid. I don’t think they wanted to start killing with two cops.” Her skin gets even paler, the smudges on her face glaring in the darkness. Carlton’s hand comes up to pat her shoulder again.

“I’ll get us out of here,” he assures her, and isn’t sure that he really hears her snort doubtfully at him or not.

“They took my gun,” she admits when she finally looks back at him, lifts one eyebrow.

“Okay,” Carlton agrees mildly. “You’re not armed.”

“Are you?”

“Am I?” He wonders right back at her, as seriously as he can, and Juliet takes a second, then blinks. Carlton smacks his hands over his chest once or twice, and then tries a shrug. It’s a Spencer shrug, though O’Hara doesn’t seem to notice that either. She pushes out a breath that lifts her bangs and then scoots closer. A moment later her hands are slipping under his coat.

It tickles, not like when Shawn does it. When Shawn does it, it’s hot and nice and even though it’s always fast, it’s like time is slowing down and he can’t think and all he can see is Shawn’s eyes, his mouth. But he’s not supposed to think about that, because he can’t trust that. Can’t trust him.

He chokes back a laugh when O’Hara’s hand skims along his waist and then she’s pulling back, falling back really, onto her butt. Which is a nice butt, but the ground is really hard and cold, which Carlton could have told her.

“Are you alright, O’Hara?” It’s difficult to say, that name. Not like Juliet. Juliet is like Shawn. Shawn. Shhhaaaawn. A name he does not say, not ever, no matter how nice it is.

“I think they drugged us too.” Her voice is subdued, and Carlton nods. This time when he pats her she doesn’t react.

“Okay,” he agrees and she gives that same little snort again, slightly amused this time. “We’re drugged and we have no guns. They took my gun,” he adds, in case she’s forgotten, and she coughs. “And we are stuck here. But we are going to kill them, right?”

“Right,” she agrees instantly, putting on her game face. It’s a frown, but this one is good, he decides. This is a detective’s face. Serious. Committed. “Right,” she says again, nodding firmly. “I am going to get us out of here, Carlton. You just…just stay there.”

“Okay,” he nods too, then shakes his head. “No.” But she’s already pushing herself back, and he turns, scowling when she gets to her feet. Her shoes have heels. They’re pretty and pink, like the short skirt, only now that’s covered in dirt. The small heels are scuffed, and when she puts a hand out, he can tell she’s not steady on them.

“O’Hara…” Carlton turns some more, lifting his head and ignoring the twinkling little stars that flash around in the sea of sickening red and green.

“Windows first.” Her voice is strained, pitched high, like Spencer when no one believes him. Carlton puts a hand to his head and swings around, feeling cold sweat prickle under his arms at just the little move. Nobody _should_ believe Spencer, not everything is a joke.

The windows are closer, but up the stairs. “Juliet,” he warns again, but she’s smart for a training detective, bends over at the first step—falls over—to crawl up them on her hands and knees. He can hear her breathing from where he is, but has to narrow his eyes to see her shaking limbs.

She topples on the top step, almost, corrects herself jerkily before shuffling to the windows.

“We’re…I don’t think we’re on the first floor. I think it’s daylight, but I can’t really see.”

Carlton nods, immediately winces at the renewed throbbing inside his skull, sharper than before. “Great, now get back here.” For once she doesn’t argue, but he shuts his eyes when she stumbles on the way back, opens them again at the harsh sound of a damn heel catching on cement, which he knows is what it is, even if he’s never heard it before.

She gets her hands out, but falls from the top step anyway, hits the ground hard. Her shocked, pained gasp makes him move, has him panting for air and swearing as he forces his body up. His thoughts are rattling around and he can’t tell what he heard, if there was a snap at all, or if it’s only Juliet swearing too, small, pissed off curse words he’d hadn’t even known that she knew.

He does know that her breathing sounds off, too careful, too shallow, and even though it’s starting to really hurt he gets himself onto his hands and knees and heads slowly toward her. He leaves the jacket behind, doesn’t care about his head.

The distance grows, shrinks, and she’s not the only one gasping wetly for air by the time he gets to her. That was stupid, he wants to snap at her, except that he can’t breathe enough to get it out. He settles for grasping at her shirt and shoving her as gently as he can against the bottom of the cement platform, forcing her to lean back.

O’Hara lets him, scowling at him, but not really moving other than to close her legs, and for a moment, Carlton scowls back at her, like he’s really concerned with how short her skirt is right now.

She’s got her arms crossed, and her skin is dotted with moisture, shining in the dark.

“That was stupid,” he finally gets to say, his voice rasping. “Don’t do that again.”

O’Hara wrinkles her nose, like she’s going to argue, and then gives a short laugh.

“Okay.” He knows her quick agreement means something. It always means something when people give in that easily, laughing at him with their sharp green eyes, going along with him for the moment because they had something else up the sleeve of their Polo shirt. They always had something up the sleeve of their Polo shirt…unless it was a day for flannel.

“Flannel?” O’Hara asks, her voice tremulous, and Carlton stares at her, feels something trickle down past his eyebrow. “You do know you’re saying everything out loud, right, Carlton?”

“What? I am not saying everything out loud.” Or…is he? There’s an echo, soft, in his head. Juliet just gives another small, shaky laugh.

“Well it’s nice to know you’re not thinking about what’s under my skirt,” she goes on, making him twitch, and the trickle at his eyebrow slides down his cheek. Carlton touches it, feels his hand wet again. He pulls his hand down when O’Hara refocuses back on him. “Don’t worry, Carlton I’ll try not to take advantage of the fact that you have no filter right now.”

It takes effort, but Carlton snorts, lifts his chin.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t say now that I wouldn’t say anywhere else,” he tells her, enunciating carefully, reasonably certain it’s true until even in the near dark he can see the speculation in the way she raises both her eyebrows.

“Oh really?” Her voice is innocent, the kind of innocence he knows not to trust, and his heart bumps, flails against his chest, because he knows who—what—he was thinking about but doesn’t know what he may have said.

She opens her mouth and then they are both twisting to look at the shriek of metal tearing across cement, the door opening and two men in black suits and black masks striding furiously toward them.

Carlton gets a glimpse of the silver of hypodermic needles and manages two very choice words before everything goes black again.

 

It’s harder to follow the voice this time, even though he can hear more urgency in it. It’s ‘Lassiter’ this time, ‘Lassiter’ for a while, and then ‘Carlton’. ‘Carlton’ like that last time Spencer had dared to say it, pressed against the wall of an interrogation room, close to the mirrored glass.

Outside had been an empty hallway, everyone gone to arrest a woman for killing her husband over some damn fruit and waiting for Carlton to go up and tell the daughter that her mother was the killer.

And Spencer, Spencer grinning up at him, breathing hard with their bodies so close, moving when he didn’t have to so that with every shift their legs brushed together, their chests just touching.

“Someday you might be as smart as I am, Lassipants. I knew it the whole time.” Spencer, Shawn, being brilliant, daring him, only going silent when Carlton had flinched.

“The whole time?” He can still hear himself, far too quiet, cold as he had pulled away. “Is this all some _game_ to you, Spencer? Don’t you take anything seriously?” He’d wanted him to, too much. But someone who would brag about something like that couldn’t possibly understand what it felt like, how he had felt, standing there with his heart ripping in half. Because Spencer didn’t understand. Not until Carlton had pulled away.

Hadn’t shoved Spencer off. For the first time in a way he should not have been keep track off, he hadn’t shoved Spencer off, he had moved, stepped back and away. And Shawn had blinked, stared at him with startled eyes and a soft mouth.

What he’d really been asking had been so pitifully obvious. Obvious to even a guy like him, glaring at someone like Spencer, a flaky little liar conman. How could he not have known? Carlton had known about the mother too, or at least suspected, but he hadn’t wanted it to be the mother, damn it.

“These are people’s lives!” He hadn’t been able to see around the bright, hot rage, poking out blindly, shoving himself away. “People’s hearts, Spencer, and you…do you know what I have to do now? I have to tell someone that…”

Hands, petting over his chest, hesitating as Spencer had followed him, but whatever Spencer had been trying to do, he hadn’t wanted any part of it. Still didn’t, no matter how it ached, no matter that there was no one smiling for him anymore.

He’d felt cold, and Shawn had been just as frozen, wide-eyed and stunned as Carlton had walked away..

He shivers at the hands on him, across his chest, through his hair, and turns his head away from the sound of his name.

“Don’t, Spencer,” he forces out the words, feels the hands on him stop, move. The small slap to his face makes him open his eyes, just to scowl. O’Hara is scowling back at him, but lets out a long, deep sigh as he focuses on her.

She doesn’t need to worry; he was going to wake up. He has scumbags to arrest.

But for a moment he can see the same worry on Shawn’s face, back at the station, then blinks it away.

“They drugged us again?” He really shouldn’t be surprised; O’Hara must have made too much noise when she’d fallen. She just breathes out again. His head is against her leg, he notices, squinting up into her scrunched face. She’s anxious, but he’s going to get them out of this, just as soon as he can move.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she speaks quietly, reading his mind like Shawn does. He flinches, even though right now nothing seems to hurt. In fact, he feels looser than before, lighter. He waves a hand between them just to watch it, can barely feel it at all. The blood is still wet on his fingers and that seems wrong somehow, but he just shrugs.

It’s only the air that he can feel, chilly even through his suit. There are slight tremors in O’Hara’s leg, slight shivers. She has to be cold too, though he doesn’t know where her coat went.

“Your head, Carlton…” she starts and the line between her eyes does mean that she’s worried. Carlton waves his hands again, gets them on the ground and pushes up.

It’s no effort at all this time, though the room shifts and rocks and even with his eyes closed things are spinning. He feels drunk, like he’s had one too many scotches and all he can see is Shawn Spencer, who’s where he shouldn’t be, looking back at him with the careful smile on his face. On another man, it would have seemed shy.

“I don’t want you to worry,” he grunts when the vision leaves and the dizziness eases enough for him to open his eyes. The room is still cold and dark, O’Hara is propped up against him, or he’s propped against her, both them lying against the base of the cement platform. She lifts her head and Carlton frowns. “But it feels nice, to have someone care,” he admits, wonders why Juliet is always making such tight, unhappy expressions around him. He’s perfectly fine, and capable of taking care of himself. “I always take care of myself,” he adds because she’s still looking at him like that and it’s making him nervous.

O’Hara’s hand curls around his arm and she smoothes her forehead.

“Of course people are worried about you, Carlton.” She hiccups but Carlton leans forward to stare seriously at her, willing his eyes to uncross. “They’re looking for us right now.”

“They are?” Something about the way she’s talking sounds familiar, like something he’d heard a million times in training seminars on how to talk to the public, all reassuring tones and physical contact. He tries to raise one eyebrow to show suspicion, only the action tugs at something on his scalp. He thinks about that, then about rescue. He shakes his head, slowly. “No they’re not. We didn’t radio in where we were headed, didn’t tell…anyone…about the lead we had that led us here. Nobody will find us.” He has to swallow. “I doubt he’s—they would bother looking.”

O’Hara gasps, and then Carlton remembers why he’d had to attend all those stupid seminars in the first place.

“No,” Juliet insists a moment later, tossing her head just as Carlton reaches down to awkwardly pat her knee. “No, they will. Shawn will look for us. Shawn will find us.”

Juliet says his name like it isn’t special. Says his name all the time, trusts in him to save them both. She believes in the looks Shawn probably shares with her too.

“Why would he?” He can’t tell how long they’ve been here, but he needs water, his throat is dry, his voice hoarse. O’Hara gives him another sharp frown, waves one hand, the other she leaves at her chest.

“Because…he’s our friend, Carlton,” she grunts back at him, her voice immediately rising with frustration. “Because he’s psychic!” When he snorts, she actually slaps his arm, then immediately gasps when he falls back against the cement.

He breathes out, and so does she. After a moment, she tries again, her voice gentle. “He is going to find us, Carlton.” This time he doesn’t argue, but doesn’t think about it, Shawn bursting in with his usual energy and smart mouth to rescue them, how his eyes would look, how he’d smile. O’Hara is still talking. “And…and we should help him.”

“Help him?” His skin pricks with more sweat, strange when O’Hara is so cold next to him. “How?”

“We can…think about him,” she suggests, the drugs clearly addling her mind.

“What?” he demands anyway, not shuddering at the idea of doing exactly what he’s been trying to avoid for three weeks now. Juliet gives him a perfect Spencer shrug.

“Well he is psychic after all.”

“There’s no such thing.” His throat hurts, his jaw too tight when he tries to speak. He can’t believe in Shawn Spencer… He’s just a liar, a joke. If he isn’t…if he isn’t that he doesn’t want to imagine what he’s done, or to see Shawn worried about this, about them like he was panicked and sick when Guster had been a hostage. He can’t and he won’t.

It seems impossible anyway, or like something that should never happen. Spencer was better off pretending, laughing at Carlton for even thinking for a second that...

“He isn’t a joke, Carlton!” Juliet barks and Carlton shuts up, doesn’t think about what he might have said. “Shawn is going to find us!” Her voice is harsh, enough that for a second he thinks it’s better than anything he’s ever taught her. She coughs, and then her voice is nice again, approaching calm. “Now you sit there and you think about him.”

He opens his mouth, and angles his head away. She grabs his arm. Hard.

“Talk,” she spits out, “talk so I know you’re not falling asleep again.”

“I don’t see why…” he tries, stops when she just squeezes his arm even more. It’s like she’s been taking lessons from his mother. “Fine,” he growls a moment later, because he was taught to keep his partner happy and for no other reason. “Fine. Spencer.”

He stares ahead, at the shadows of the room, the door that looks so far away. Just wait until the drugs wear off…

O’Hara is pressing against him, tiny shivers and a glare he can feel. “It will be weird if they find us like this,” he says, not sure why, but Juliet doesn’t respond. He clears his throat. “Awkward. I don’t normally…” Lucinda flashes before his eyes, disappears.

“Shawn,” O’Hara reminds him, merciless, and he’s damn certain he taught her that. He doesn’t feel proud though, just irritated.

“Shawn,” he repeats without thinking, hisses after the name leaves his mouth. But it’s too late. He frowns, shuts his eyes. “Shawn. A lying ass.” He frowns harder, because green eyes had looked at him with intent, his grin happy, wanting Carlton to be happy too, as though he could be, with a murder hanging over his head. “Spencer,” he tries again, “can’t take anything seriously.”

“Why do you say that?” Juliet lets go of his arm. He listens to her breath for a while. “I’ll admit, he plays around, but he’s helped us so many times, Carlton…even when he didn’t have to.”

Case after case, solved quicker than they would have been, because of Spencer. Some maybe wouldn’t have been solved at all, he can even admit to himself, gritting his teeth to make sure he keeps that inside.

“For money, or for the attention.”

“Whose attention?” Juliet interrupts him and Carlton waves a hand without opening his eyes, ignoring her.

“He doesn’t do it for anyone else, doesn’t think of anyone else. Everything’s a damn joke to him. Sure,” Carlton reopens his eyes, lets the room spin. “It can be…funny…to watch Spencer let loose on certain suspects…”

Juliet lets out a small laugh and Carlton can feel some of tension leave his shoulders, tension he hadn’t known was there. He’s sure she can recall as many cases as he can where Shawn was clearly enjoying himself, strutting around the guilty party, dangling his knowledge in front of them, blatantly showing off.

For O’Hara probably. Carlton grunts, tenses right back up.

“But personally I find it distracting, his mouth always turned up in a smile, always touching me, shoving himself at me, like he wants me to believe…that I’m in on the joke.”

“Aren’t you?” It takes him a few moments before he recognizes that Juliet’s tone has gone suspiciously blank. Carlton lets his scowl get deeper.

“No.” He’s usually on the outside. He’s _always_ on the outside, especially with someone like Spencer, charming and fun, young, smart, sexy.

O’Hara coughs and Carlton swings his head around to look at her. Her eyebrows are up. Way up.

She hasn’t wiped the dirt from her face and that seems strange. He picks up a hand to do it for her, and her cough gets strangled in her throat. Her skin is soft; Shawn’s is rough with stubble.

“Idiot never shaves.” Carlton drops his hand, touches the dusty layer covering the cement floor, the slick fabric of his pants. “Thinks he has everyone fooled. And why shouldn’t they be? I’ve seen him, with any halfway decent-looking suspect, with you, and then he turns to me with those damn eyes that are whatever color he wants them to be, smirking at me like he _knows_.” He grits his teeth again, but he can hear his words, streaming out, leaving him sagging against the wall.

“Probably thought I was funny too, inviting me closer with his screwball behavior, daring me to get him pinned, to shove him back, and then when I get him right where I want him…” He can’t breathe again, feels Shawn pressed hot and hard against him, struggling just enough to get closer, eyes lit up. Playing with him. “And I was stupid, to think he’d actually want me.”

“Oh my God.” The quiet exclamation abruptly reminds him that O’Hara is still there, hearing every word. “Oh my God,” she says again and Carlton can feel the press against his skull as he turns to look at her. “You like Shawn!” A beaming smile splits her face in two, and then she’s laughing, softly, into his shoulder.

It’s hard to move, but it doesn’t hurt. Not right now, he’s way too high. But at the slightest attempt to get up, O’Hara’s hand is back on him, and this time he notices that it’s her left hand, that she’s stretching it awkwardly across her chest, leaving her right arm in her lap.

He stops, glaring as much as he can in the dark, trying to see her injuries, even though she’s laughing at him now too. Both of them, thinking he’s some big joke.

“I’m not laughing at you,” Juliet giggles, gasping a little at the end when he sits back down so he won’t hurt her.

“Oh yeah?” Carlton lifts an eyebrow, looks away.

“I just… _wow_. But it all makes so much sense now.” Her laugher finally quiets down. It’s only a matter of time before the interrogation starts. O’Hara breathes in deep and then clears his throat. Carlton’s stomach tightens. He focuses on the door, the damn door that won’t open for any rescue. “Is that why you’ve been running out of the station every day for almost a month now? Why Shawn and Gus are barely around?”

“I…”

“He’s been watching you too.” She hums, not even bothered to imply that he’s been watching Shawn. “I thought he was afraid of you. But oh… _wow_.” She keeps saying it, like it’s so unbelievable. “Carlton.” Her fingers pry at his elbow again, creep over to his chest until he’s looking back at her. He can’t seem to scowl, can’t seem to move at all. “That’s not shoving, he’s _throwing_ himself at you. Of _course_ he likes you back.”

‘Like’, it’s such a young word, and Carlton flinches from that too.

“I doubt it, alright, O’Hara. Even if he is really…someone like Spencer isn’t going to want me. Even my wife didn’t…”

“Huh.” There’s so much disgust and scorn in such a small sound.

“What?” He snaps because he’s tired of it all, the laughter, the games, because they are talking about everything but what they can’t talk about here, and if it means listening to him spill his heart out, then it’s better than facing the obvious.

“Shawn is nothing like your ex-wife, Carlton.”

“Yeah,” he snorts, breathing heavily when he can feel a twinge at the back of his head. The drugs are wearing off again. He snorts again, for emphasis. “He has a dick.”

At his crudity O’Hara just gives a startled laugh that fades quickly. It’s not how he’d normally be talking and they both know it.

“How’s that head?” she asks, as lowly as she can, barely a whisper. She moves, and something panicky flickers across her face when her hand comes back wet. When he moves he can feel the steady drip down his neck, blood that won’t stop. His heart is pounding. “We need something to stop the bleeding,” she mirrors his dizzy thought, and slides a hand over his coat.

Carlton gets it, quicker than he expects to, shifting away from her enough to get the coat off. He can feel O’Hara helping him with her one good hand. She’s a good partner, better than most, maybe the best he’s ever had.

“She said…” he says, and holds still as O’Hara presses his coat to his wound. There’s only a twinge, he’s still thankfully numb. Too numb to stop himself. “When she first left, she said nobody would want me.”

“Bitch.”

“What?” He still can’t quite believe what he’s hearing, O’Hara has never sworn this much…ever.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Carlton,” she tells him, her voice light considering that she’s trying to press a heavy coat to a head wound with one hand. She leans his closer, takes a second to try to pat at his shoulder. “After all I’m sure you remember that when I first joined the department…I had kind of a little crush on you.”

“What?” It’s all he can seem to keep saying. He’d stare, but he’s facing the wrong way.

“Oh it went away, but really, you are sort of impressive, Carlton.” That does make him turn around, staring at however many O’Haras there are. Her skin has some color, for the first time in a long time. She shrugs, but in an embarrassed sort of way, makes a gesture that means “big”. “Very…uh…rough.”

“Anyway,” she goes on, clearing her throat while Carlton is trying to remember that this is his partner talking, trying to feel grateful that in the old days partners would never have had a talk like this. O’Hara recovers herself, focusing on pressing the coat to his head as firmly as she can. It twinges again. “Do you really think Shawn would spend all this time messing with you, just for a joke? I mean he’s not exactly subtle.” She picks up speed, and Carlton wonders if she can see the tension in his shoulders. “I mean, when he had his little crush on me, he followed me around too, but that’s _nothing_ to the way he is with you, I’m serious.

He’s not having this talk. He’s not bleeding out from a head wound and drugged with God knows what and being forced to listen to O’Hara talk about Shawn Spencer chasing after her. Except as usual she won’t shut up.

“I know he can be a little…overwhelming…which is why…well… I just couldn’t… Even when he went right for a kiss the second he thought he could. Well not really a kiss…”

The cement is so cold it makes him ache. Carlton bends in, away from the wall, from O’Hara’s hold on him, and shuts his eyes.

“You kissed him?” He could have died without knowing that. Really.

“No, he kissed me…well sort of.” It makes it worse that he can picture the scrunched up look on O’Hara’s face. Considering it, considering Shawn kissing her. He shakes his head, but she either doesn’t see or doesn’t care. “It was really more of close talking…”

She drops the coat behind his head, around his shoulders, and tugs at his arm until he opens his eyes. He’d like to think he’s frowning, but isn’t sure what is on his face.

“He kissed you,” he repeats, and he’s too stoned to really feel like someone stabbed him. It shouldn’t matter anyway, he should never have expected anything less from a lying, sneaky, con artist _psychic_.

“Actually, I suppose it was subtle, in a way. Because he got as close as he could, as the situation would allow, and then…waited, I guess. For me to…” Carlton doesn’t ask for what, he knows, has seen that hopeful smile directed at him more than once. “But it wasn’t anything, and when I walked away from it, he got over it and moved to you!”

Nobody in her situation should sound that perky. Carlton grunts at her. Like that is supposed to reassure him somehow, that Shawn had tried to kiss her when Shawn had never tried to kiss him. He means…that Shawn had gotten over it so quickly.

“Oh for Pete’s sake, Carlton!” she snaps and he must have spoken. “It wasn’t anything, really. It was…” Carlton has a second to blink, to even try to focus, and then he has to shut his eyes because O’Hara is so close. Her eyes are open, he realizes, and then freezes at the gentle puff of air across his lips, the knowledge that O’Hara’s mouth is millimeters from his.

“See?” Juliet whispers, not that he sees anything, he can only feel someone less than an inch from kissing him, a warm, sweet presence, and if Shawn had done this to him he knows he wouldn’t have pulled back or walked away no matter how embarrassing that admission is.

O’Hara’s lips part for a quiet gasp, but neither of them is moving. The space around them is warm for the first time all day, _O’Hara_ is warm, her lips soft for a too-brief moment and then Carlton is scowling and lifting his head.

There’s a line between O’Hara’s eyes too when he looks, and she’s reaching for the gun she doesn’t have anymore, looks frustrated.

“We’re in a very stressful situation,” he remarks, not wetting his lips.

“I know!” O’Hara is a second away from shouting and stops to clear her throat. There’s some color in her cheeks at least. The fact that it looks pretty makes Carlton lower his head, no matter how much it pulls at his wound. His partner, he reminds himself, getting dizzier by the second. Sort of impressive, he adds, to himself, blushing too.

“We have to get out of here.” They have business to take care of. Juliet—O’Hara nods, glancing around. Carlton doesn’t think he’s imagining that the light seems dimmer, doesn’t want to know how cold it’s going to get in this room at night.

“How long been in here anyway?” Oh yeah. Carlton brings up his arm, squints at his wrist. Even the glow-in-the-dark numbers don’t make sense. He shoves his arm, and his watch, at her without looking. He only realizes that he must have hit her sore arm when she makes a funny noise and quickly bends over.

It’s been too long since she’s eaten, but the sound of dry retching makes Carlton get onto his knees, hesitating for a moment before grabbing her hair and holding it back. He rubs a circle—carefully and in all ways properly—on her upper back.

She’s still cradling her arm, supporting herself on one, and that amount of pain—even with drugs—means something broke in her fall.

“Damn it, O’Hara! You need to tell me crap like this!”

“So you can…what?” She’s bent over and breathing hard, her skin slick with sweat, but still cranky. It’s oddly pleasing to hear her being so self-assured, like she’s learned something after all. “I can handle it myself.”

He can see that, trying to vomit on a dirty floor and distracting them both from the shit creek they’re currently paddling up by talking about Spencer.

The heat in his body has nothing to do with whatever’s in his bloodstream and he rubs her back again as she stops shuddering.

“You shouldn’t have to,” he mutters, though she probably can’t hear. He reaches for his tie, tugs it off, so clumsy he nearly chokes himself. The room is cold and getting colder—or Carlton is, bleeding too much—but he unbuttons his dress shirt and peels it off as O’Hara sits back up. He twists it and then holds it up significantly.

“Have to keep that still for now,” he adds, and she finally seems to get the point of his crappy little sling. Her frown is not happy, but she doesn’t move as he ties it around her, only sucks in a breath, white with the pain. O’Hara deserves more. She’s a good partner. Maybe the best he’s ever had.

“They’ll find us,” he whispers, tries to picture Spencer running through that door, for O’Hara’s sake. He pictures the smile on Spencer’s face too, but that’s for himself. “He’ll find us.”

 

He wakes the third time to cold, silence, and a lot of pain.

His head is ringing, or it’s his ears, and opening his eyes hurts. His neck is wet, sticky, his fingers chilled and numb. The only heat he can feel is the burning, yellow throb of the wound at the back of his head and O’Hara, curled up next to him.

The room is darker but he can see that the door hasn’t opened, that no one is there but the two of them. They must have fallen asleep from exhaustion, or boredom, because he feels everything, the hard ground on his ass, at his spine, each goosebump on the bare skin of his shoulders and arms.

“They didn’t come back?” Juliet comments and Carlton wonders just when she woke up, if he moved. She scoots away almost immediately and he shivers when even that bit of warmth is gone. Then he opens his mouth, swings his eyes to the black corners of the room before he can answer that they’ve probably been left here to die. O’Hara will be hopeful, will want hopeful, so he says something else.

“I should try the door.” It’s huge, heavy, it’s going to take both hands and a lot of strength to get it open, if it’s not locked, which it probably is.

O’Hara just snorts. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Carlton.” She’s still moving, getting to her feet but leaving her heels on the ground this time.

“It’s better than wasting time with the windows,” he growls as he tries to move too, seeing his hands going to the floor, moving too slowly. He’s not drugged anymore, he should be able to move, but his fingers slip in the dust, his arms won’t hold him up for more than a few moments as he turns himself around.

“Well I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the time!” O’Hara growls right back, breathing hard as she gets to her feet. “Neither were you, if I recall correctly.” She looks at him as she wobbles, and then her mouth falls open, her eyes going wide. She looks away a second later, points to his coat. “Carlton…you need to keep pressure on that…on your head.” She’s way too breathless.

“Who gives a crap about my head?” He narrows his eyes, but reaches for his coat, already stiff with dried blood, really stiff, with a lot of dried blood. Too much. His arms ache as he holds it up. “I want a scotch.”

O’Hara laughs shortly, quietly, for his benefit, then shuffles to the door without speaking. She’s not graceful, and it takes too long, but Carlton bites his lip and doesn’t say a damn thing. Not until she’s back and shaking her head.

“Didn’t really expect them to leave it open for us.” At his pissiness, Juliet snorts again. She takes a deep breath before she starts back up the stairs. At his “Be careful!” she flips him off, with her good arm of course, then stops and gives him a careful smile at the top of the stairs, so like Shawn’s it isn’t funny. Not that any of this is funny.

“I’m going to break the glass, see if anyone’s out there. Give me my coat.”

He has to look for it, stretching just to get it in his hand and then shaking when he has to hold it up. She’s shaking too, to bend down to get it, but a minute later she sucks in a breath and he can hear the noise of breaking glass.

She’s leaning against the wall when he looks, obviously tired. “We’re on a second or third floor.” Her voice is low, flat. “It looks like an empty construction sight, and I don’t see any people. The sun is setting.”

“We can signal them, O’Hara. In the morning, someone will see.” In the morning… Carlton lets his coat fall and picks up his tie. There’s blood on it just from where it rested on the floor, but he holds it up like a flag. “Hang this out the window.”

“Your tie?” O’Hara asks and Carlton gives a careful smile of his own at the frown in her voice. But she works her way over, takes it. “Who would notice this?”

“Shawn.” The truth no longer hurts, not when everything else does. Carlton swallows and falls back against the cement. He shuts his eyes at the scraping shuffle of O’Hara going slowly back down the stairs, opens them when she gets herself back into a kneeling position with effort. She’s staring at him, and whatever he looks like it can’t be good.

There are probably pints of his blood on the floor around them, drying on his clothes, on hers. By morning if it doesn’t stop, he won’t have any left. He’d swear, but he’s too tired.

“You’re a good detective, O’Hara,” is what he says instead. He even means it, though he twitches his expression into a scowl. “You aren’t ready to work alone yet, obviously,” he adds, because she is headstrong, and still has a lot to learn about listening to her partner that she should think about next time she’s trapped in a small, freezing room with a broken arm.

O’Hara opens her mouth and makes a noise. Carlton fixes her with the hardest look he can manage and she knocks it off so he can finish.

“The Chief…” He pauses, thinking it over, then nods. “Karen is smart, you should listen to her, though a good cop has to trust his—her—instincts too.”

“Carlton…” she starts again and Carlton leans his head back, not really giving a crap about the pain.

“Shut up, O’Hara,” he orders. His mouth is dry, he really wants a scotch. Of course, he’s not likely to get anything he wants now, never really was. “And don’t let Spencer lead you around by the nose.”

“…Don’t think I’m the one with that problem.” Juliet’s voice is light. Carlton glares at her, but her eyebrows are up, her face blank.

“If he gives you trouble, you just remind him that not everything is a joke.” Not that he wants Spencer to be serious, not really, he just wants him to get that sometimes he might need to be.

“I think he knows that, Carlton.” Juliet’s tone is still bland, but her gaze is intent on his face. “And if he didn’t, the past few weeks have certainly taught him that.”

“What?” He doesn’t give a crap about his tone either, not when he’s going to die in this shithole. O’Hara rolls her eyes, moves to sit on her legs at his side.

“You’re honestly telling me you haven’t seen the way he’s been looking at you from across the station?” She doesn’t even wait for an answer to that, just keeps going, getting louder until the last word, then she breathes in deep and glances at him through her hair. “But you can talk this out with him yourself.”

Which is so cliché that she deserves the glare he gives her. Besides, there’s nothing to talk about. Maybe people will be looking for them by now, maybe even Spencer who always solves his cases, but that doesn’t mean that anything else is true.

“I….he was just toying with me O’Hara.” If he wasn’t, then it means that Carlton had hurt him, and maybe it’s the pain, or the blood loss, but he’s weak and pissed and worried sick at the very idea. Because he’d never really wanted to hurt Spencer. Well, at the beginning, but not afterward, not when they had sort of, kind of, become friends, or allies, or something. What he wants, has wanted, is to make sure Shawn never stops smiling, because secretly, maybe, he likes that Shawn has never been touched by murder, or by things like this and he would never have snapped if Shawn hadn’t been so close.

“Carlton!” O’Hara barks the order, interrupting either thoughts or words, he’s not sure. But he twitches, looks at her. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“ _Yes_.” He’s not a moron.

“Then trust me, trust Shawn.” O’Hara pants at him, jabbing a finger at him in a way that’s oddly familiar. “He always comes through in the end, right? Right?” she says again when Carlton hesitates, wets his dry mouth without answering.

“Yes.” He could be humoring her, but he drops his head and speaks into his chest. “It takes that idiot a while,” he adds for the sake of pride, because he won’t be able to take it if Spencer _doesn’t_ come through that door, “but he always comes through in the end.” It’s true, the same way that Spencer is never wrong. Shawn will show up, grinning and carefree.

O’Hara is like an Academy instructor, pounding the point into him, even if he is injured.

“So when he walks through that door, you’re going to…”

“Kiss the smartass right out of him,” Carlton snaps back at her, gulping down a breath and shaking his head way too late to wipe the annoying grin off her face. So what if he’d actually, finally said it out loud, it wasn’t going to happen, no matter how much he wants it to.

Even if Shawn does come to save them, even _when_ he comes to save them, Carlton isn’t going to kiss him, or almost kiss him, or whatever it was that Spencer does according to O’Hara.

But O’Hara is gasping and Carlton turns his head to yell at her to be quiet when he sees where she’s looking. He sees the door shake before he hears the heavy bang and flinches back in reflex even knowing that their abductors wouldn’t need to break down the door.

It sounds like a ram, hits the door three times before he can hear muffled shouting.

“Police officers inside!” he shouts out a second after he processes that they’ve been given an order to get back.

O’Hara looks at him. The door is some distance away, but they have nowhere to go except up the stairs, which neither of them can do with any sort of speed. And he might be crazy, but he swears he hears McNab yelling “Fire in the hole!” and it might be the single most frightening sound he’s heard in his life.

He ducks and shuts his eyes, feels O’Hara wrap her one arm around him.

The noise is deafening, makes his stomach lurch and his head pound so hard he can’t see. He imagines there’s a flash and a lot of smoke, but doesn’t look to see the door get blown off its hinges.

Too much of whatever it was, is all he can think, letting silence replace the ringing in his ears, tightening and then relaxing his grip on O’Hara.

She’s moving, sitting up though still pressed to his side, saying something he can’t hear. Her body is vibrating, or that could be the room itself, the building.

“What idiot set that charge?” is the first thing he says, his hearing abruptly returning, and with it the ringing and too many voices, his heartbeat, all of it dizzying. The room is smoky, and he coughs, pats O’Hara as she coughs with him. She _is_ talking, whispering, probably not meant to be heard.

“Thank God,” she breathes out and Carlton opens his eyes at the sound of the Chief’s voice.

“I’m not sure about that, something tells me you ought to be more grateful to Officer McNab for keeping _unauthorized explosives_ in his squad car.” Even with everything, Carlton is wincing at her tone, focusing as much as he can on McNab, standing sheepishly by the door—which has been split open from the outside and is still smoking and red hot at the edges.

They had to push it open, which means all of _that_ had only been to blow the lock, and Carlton narrows his eyes at a quiet and sort of stunned-looking McNab and all the powder on his face before turning to Karen.

The Chief has her vest on and her gun out. She’s on her phone as she strides over to them, calling for a damn bus and giving their location. “Tell everyone else to end the search, and let SWAT know we’ve cleared this building and not to worry about any explosions they may have heard.”

“SWAT?” O’Hara croaks and McNab finally remembers he’s a cop.

“They’re at the construction site next door, taking down the two who…well…”

“You’re alive, detectives.” Karen interrupts him, thank God, letting out one breath. “I told Mr. Spencer not to worry.”

“Spencer?” The renewed pounding in his chest would panic him, if Carlton weren’t sure he doesn’t have that much blood left to lose. He leans back, flicks his eyes to the door, and sure enough, sees Shawn step slowly into the room. His steps are slow, unsteady. His eyes are closed.

Carlton blinks, watches silently as Guster peeks around the door after him, at Carlton and O’Hara, and then whispers something to Shawn that makes Shawn sigh and open his eyes.

“Yeah,” McNab is still talking, wiping at scorch marks on his face, drawing Carlton’s attention. “We were at the site too, wondering if they still had you two, when he saw your tie in the window. I don’t know how he knew it was yours though.”

“The spirits told me.” Shawn’s voice is quiet, but closer than Carlton expected. He blinks again, smoke in his eyes making them water. Through the blur Spencer seems as shaky as O’Hara had been. He’s not smiling, and Carlton hurts. “Or I could see the coffee stains from a mile away.”

That Shawn is frowning makes Carlton frown, but he doesn’t say anything while sharp green eyes dart around, from him to O’Hara, to the floor and how little space is between them, back to him. Spencer’s face seems a little green too.

“Where the hell is that ambulance?” Karen is swearing and Guster is saying something, something about Carlton’s coat, and bleeding, as he’s helping O’Hara to her feet. She’s staring at Carlton too and Carlton scowls, once again not in on whatever it is that everyone else seems to know.

And he knows whose fault that is, and forces himself to focus on Shawn’s face as Shawn kneels down, picks up Carlton’s coat. Everyone else is still talking, though the ringing in his ears is getting louder, as loud as the beat of his heart, which is too fast, which is bad, even he knows what that means. He wonders if Shawn does, Shawn seems to know everything.

“Now, Lassi, you can’t go bleeding all over your suits.” Of course Spencer is trying to joke, curving up his mouth only to toss his head and push out a breath. “You really only have two that are even worth wearing.” He lifts the coat and nearly falls back onto his heels when Carlton tries to bat it away. It’s blocking his view.

“Not everything is a joke, Shawn,” he growls, says the name, the name he isn’t supposed to say and grabs a handful of Polo shirt.

His eyes are closed, his senses swimming, but this isn’t almost kissing, or blood loss and drugs. This _is_ kissing, and time seems to slow.

Shawn is a hot, impatient presence in front of him, rough stubble against his face, hands at his shoulders. His lips part instantly, not to breathe, or laugh, but to kiss him back. His hold is tight, whether Carlton is in pain or not, but he doesn’t feel any. He feels Shawn, pushing back against him, licking at his lips, at his tongue, and there’s nothing _almost_ about it.

“This is real,” Shawn breathes when he finally pulls his head away, not far, gasping against Carlton’s cheek. He’s warm, close, still, not even squirming.

Carlton can see the outlines of everyone else. McNab, Karen, staring at him like he’s lost his mind, or at death’s door. O’Hara grinning, as pink as her skirt, Guster rolling his eyes, glancing away. But nobody seems that upset, not that he can tell anyway, not that he cares, not right now. Maybe later.

Because he’s not going to die.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says out loud, his voice hoarse and strange, and Spencer’s fingers curl into his skin.

“Crap" he mutters a second later, not red in the face, not at all, and stares as seriously as he can when Shawn really does pull away to study him. Shawn’s eyes are wide, his mouth a flat, worried line, which is very, very bad. “That was supposed to make to you smile,” Carlton comments, swaying as he tries to sit up.

He has no idea why that seems to do the trick, but he lays back and stares at Shawn as the EMTs rush in, Shawn who is beaming at him like Carlton has just done something amazing.

He has no idea what this is either, but his head hurts, so Carlton finally closes his eyes. As the world gets a lot darker, he can feel Spencer fluttering around next to him, worried and clumsy, in the way and too close, but there.

Then he smiles.

It actually is pretty funny.

 

**(Meow Meow Meow)**

Lassi had passed out somewhere on the ride to the hospital, according to Jules anyway, who’d gotten to ride with him, as his partner, and since she’d been headed for the same destination.

Shawn, for some (insane and unknown and probably stupid) reason, had had to ride with Gus, _and_ had been kept (ordered to sit and try to be calm, please, Mr. Spencer) in the waiting area with a few cops from the station. The cops had been more concerned with Lassi’s welfare than even Shawn had expected, considering the man’s attitude toward most other people, but then, they were cops.

Buzz must have kept quiet, because he hadn’t noticed any funny looks from any of them, not in the entire time they’d all been forced to wait. Which had been for over _four_ hours. Which was when Shawn had at least been allowed to see Jules.

Poor Jules had been a mess, possibly the only person having a worse day than Shawn—except for Lassi.

She’d gotten a cast, _and_ a pink sling (turns out, they come in several colors now, which is neat, in a distracting kind of way) mostly to keep her from moving it for the first week or so, which is what happens, apparently, when you break your arm in two places while trying to walk around in heels while drugged out of your mind. Then she’d had to sit through the Chief’s questions since Lassi couldn’t.

For a cop, Shawn supposes it is a little embarrassing to lose your gun (though Lassi clearly hadn’t gone down without a fight, and judging from the bruises marking Jules’ face, she hadn’t either) but the Chief had seemed more pissed about the whole ‘criminals daring to take her people hostage’ thing.

Added to that, Jules’ cute pink suit was going to have to get thrown out, and she was going to have a hard time with only one arm available to take the shower she desperately needed to get all the dirt off her face, all the blood out from under her fingernails.

Shawn has no interest in offering himself for the job, not anymore, but is fairly confident that she can always ask Gus, who had already very gentlemanly offered to give her a ride home.

She’d been smiling as she’d left, smiling almost the whole time really, and Shawn still isn’t sure if it had been about being alive, or if that light in her eyes had been for witnessing that scene between him and Lassipants.

Okay, so Shawn’s day hadn’t been _all_ bad, even if it had started with a wicked hangover and the sound of Henry hammering practically right next to his head to fix that stupid fish on a plaque thing in his living room.

Lassi—Carlton—had kissed him.

Vampire-pale and sweating, hair matted and caked with the same dark blood that was drying on his face and neck and dripping onto his thin, white undershirt. Carlton had kissed him. Made a joke even.

He isn’t dead, not like Shawn had thought, seeing the blood drops on that cheap blue necktie hanging from a shard of broken glass. He’s not sure that he would have even noticed the tie in the fading light if not for how bright that blood had been.

But Lassi isn’t dead, and he had kissed Shawn.

The day had, in fact, been sort of awesome.

Awesome in a way he’s not used to, because he’d saved Lassiter, or helped, and from the second the Chief had called him to ask if he’d seen her two missing detectives (the note of worry in her voice scarier than Freddy and Jason’s secret love child), Shawn had been a step away from a full-on, Howling Mad Murdock, Helen Hunt in an after-school special, this is your brain on drugs kind of meltdown.

In the long hours since, he hasn’t quite managed to return to his usual calm. He hasn’t even managed to eat. He did have some watery hot chocolate from a vending machine, with some Shrinky-dink marshmallows in it, right after he’d called Henry and left a message.

“Hey, Henry, Lassi’s in the hospital. He’s not dead, but he is going to need a new suit. Think Sears is having a sale? What’s your neighbor’s cat’s name? I know you know.” (His own pause there had made him nervous, so he’d gone on, knowing he was pushing it.) “I’ll call you tomorrow. Oh, and he kissed me. I don’t think we’re getting married or anything, but I might bring him around for steaks if you’ve got any. Bye.”

His father had wisely not called him back.

Though he had of course, by now, called Gus, and then _probably_ Vick so he could hear the official details of kidnappers panicking when they’d realized two cops were close to them, and drugging them, and then just leaving them in a cold, locked room without any food or water or blankets or even a Band-aid while they’d debated whether to kill them or just leave them there to die.

Which was…why Shawn had been only to happy to look over the Lassiter’s (anal-retentive) files on the kidnappings and use them to lead the big, bad (slightly irritating and aggressive) SWAT guys to that construction site so they could bring them down.

He couldn’t eat anyway, his stomach hurts too much.

And he has a feeling that Henry will be here in the morning to pick him up, take him home and make him eat, even though Shawn hadn’t said a word to Vick, or Henry, or even Jules about staying here with Lassi all night.

“Observation” they’d said. From what Shawn can tell, and guess, Carlton hadn’t had the best reaction to whatever he’d been injected with. That, combined with the blood loss and mild dehydration, and the stitches plus a few staples—which just sounds horrible and horrifying and all around gross and painful and wrong—meant that Carlton had to be watched, at least for tonight.

So Shawn is watching him.

From out in the hall, it’s true. But he hadn’t been allowed in the room, not at first.

“Waiting room, Mr. Spencer.” On the Chief’s orders, which he still doesn’t understand, because he so hadn’t been getting in the way, and anyway how were those doctors going to know what was wrong and all of Carlton’s allergies and phobias if Shawn hadn’t been there to tell them?

So Jules had known them too. It didn’t mean anything. Just like it didn’t mean anything that Juliet had been allowed to visit Lassi once he’d been given a private room, or that she and Carlton had been snuggled up together when everyone had rushed in to rescue them, or that their gazes had met when Carlton had woken up briefly and seen Shawn outside in the hall.

There had been a lot of people around, cops, doctors, nurses, Gus, and while normally, at the station, Shawn would have had no problem in walking in and draping himself all over Carlton, it had been…different.

Maybe because today, this time, Shawn had pressed in close, and Carlton had kissed him.

Now the hallways are quiet and mostly dark. It’s past visiting hours, but Shawn never lets little rules stop him, and anyway, nurses are nicer than people say, especially to good-looking and charming young men who are obviously scared to death that their grouchy, grumpy head detectives could die.

Could have died. He’s fine now, they keep saying. Shawn thinks he’s too pale, even for Lassi.

Shawn hasn’t exactly gotten around to going _into_ the room yet, (he’s working up to it, really). Though it’s been _hours_ and everyone else has gone home. He’s loud, he knows that; he can walk quietly, but other things could get loud, and Lassi is sleeping, needs his sleep, and Shawn ought to let him get better.

And of course, when Lassi wakes up, he won’t be dying anymore and he might decide he should walk away after all. There’s always that.

Which is why Shawn knows he should go, call a cab, but here he is, standing in a doorway, watching Carlton sleep.

He’s under a blanket, on one side, an IV in the back of his hand, though Shawn’s not sure what it is. He’ll memorize the label before he goes, ask Gus.

They’d had to shave part of Lassi’s hair, which means Lassi will shave the rest; Shawn hates Carlton’s hair short, but had decided a while ago (before the hot chocolate) that he could deal with it, if he has to, if Lassi wants him to. The idea makes him shift forward, restless, antsy…like he could Hammer dance across the floor, not that he would. (He’s way cooler than that, thank you).

It’s close to four am. They’re alone, for now, in a darkened room, and if he wants to see, to _finally_ see for himself, it’s now or never.

Henry would be losing patience with him as it is, even if he had decided to pretend that last night had never happened, so Shawn rolls his shoulders and walks silently into the room.

The curtain is wide open, like the door, because Lassi hadn’t been awake to yell at anyone about his privacy.

Shawn stops at the foot of the bed, checks the IV label. Lassi is still, breathing evenly.

“He’ll be fine, Shawn,” Jules had told him on her way out. She’d looked tired, but pleased, at least until she’d peered into his face. His smile must not have been convincing. Stupid vodka hangovers. Stupid kidnappers.

“He’s _Carlton_ , Shawn,” she’d tried again. “A few staples aren’t going to stop him.”

“He can be impressive,” Gus had agreed, too forcefully, for Shawn’s benefit, but Shawn had been distracted by the way those words had made Jules blush and drop her gaze. She even blushed pink.

It’s the kind of thing that makes Shawn want to remind them that he’s psychic—or, okay, _not_ psychic, but not stupid either, and he doesn’t need to be humored, or lied to.

He moves on, not distracted by that memory right now as much as he should be, _will_ be later when he’s calmer, and stops again at the side of the bed.

Lassi had been drooling for a while, snoring too, though he is quiet now. He _would_ snore, Shawn should have known. It’s too annoying of a habit for Carlton not to have it. And _still_ Shawn is here.

Weird.

There’s dried blood under his fingernails too, that hadn’t been washed away when they’d cleaned his face and neck; Shawn’s going to have to take Lassi _and_ Jules out for manis at this rate.

He reaches out at the thought, sliding his fingers lightly over the back of Carlton’s hand, then jumping about two feet in the air when Carlton speaks.

“ _Of course_ visiting hours mean nothing to you, Spencer.” Blue eyes are narrowed on him, only a little unfocused.

“Lassipants! You’re awake! He remembers a minute too late to move his hand. When he does, Carlton drops his attention to the bed.

“Like anyone can sleep in this damn itchy blanket.” He scratches at it, but the movement is slow, tired, just a little bit still messed up on painkillers.

“He’s going to exhaust easily for a while,” the nurses had told him, “and be cranky, because he won’t be able to wash his hair.”

“He’s always cranky,” Shawn had told them, honestly, but maybe his wide smile had been why they hadn’t seemed to believe him. (Or why they’d asked so many questions about Carlton’s other qualities, not believing that someone as clearly as amazing as Shawn would want to be with someone like Carlton. If they only knew…)

“Says Señor Snores-a-Lot,” is all he says to Lassi though, and Carlton snorts.

“What time is it?” Apparently, Lassi finds that blanket very offensive, he’s scowling at it. Shawn grins, shrugs.

“Tomorrow.” Or something. “Four-ish.”

“And you’re still here?” Lassi looks up at him and Shawn has to make his smile stay in place.

He’s here because he wants to be here. Because he thought Lassi might want him here.

“Lass, have you tried the machine hot chocolate here? It’s just like Mom used to make.” Not his mom, but yeah. He sticks his hands into his pockets, watches Lass blink, stare at him. There’s a lock of his hair between his eyes.

“That tastes like crap.” Lassiter’s voice rises. “You should be at home, asleep.”

“But, Lassi, the nurses and I were going to have a _Fresh Prince of Bel-Air_ marathon.”

Lassi just snorts again and keeps on staring at him. Shawn digs a toe into the ground. His stomach makes a growling noise, loud, as he’d predicted.

“Not even one single offering of pineapple though,” he adds, rolling his eyes. “I ought to suggest it to the manufacturers, smoothie machines in hospitals, at the DMV. Think of how much more pleasant it would be to have to wait if you could suck on a large, frosty tropical blend, with just a hint of orange.”

“You’re insane, Spencer.” Carlton shifts, glances away and maybe it’s the dark, but Shawn’s pretty sure he’s blushing. Which at least means Carlton remembers the kiss. Shawn only has to wonder what Lassi will blame it on, when they have the awkward, “I’m just not that into you” conversation. “…Make everything a joke?”

Shawn jerks back, finds his hands out of his pockets and waves them for a moment before crossing his arms over his chest.

“Rescuing you was pretty funny.” He might regret the instant smartass reply later but can’t seem to shut up. “SWAT in one building, taking down the psychos who took you and Jules, the rest of us waiting to find out if you…” Lassiter breathes in, holds it, and Shawn can feel himself frowning. “Nobody but Buzz and the Chief believing me when I pointed to the tie, insisted you were alive.” _Had_ to be alive. “Buzz setting his hair on fire trying to light the fuse, dropping it like _three times_. Bursting in to find you.” Bleeding so badly it was amazing he hadn’t already passed out. “…Half-naked and hugging _Jules_.” Shawn’s hands are shaking and he presses them tighter to his body, hardens his frown to something Henry-like. “Something I should know about between you and the fair Juliet?”

It’s another joke, a dumb one, but Lassi’s eyes drop and he picks at the blanket, again.

Shawn honestly, really, can’t breathe. Not until Lassi lifts his head and glares at him, whispering furiously.

“You kissed her first, Spencer.”

“First?” Shawn repeats, then snaps his mouth shut. A moment later he can sigh, which is seriously strange, because his stomach is the same big knot it’s been all day. His face feels warm, but he quirks his mouth up.

“So it was all about me?” He can talk to Jules later, find out details, warn her off, just in case she has any ideas. This Carlton is his, but if she’s into the name and good-looking chocolate nerd boys, she can have Gus, who is definitely cooler than the Carlton on Fresh Prince. “Oh, Lass, you cheating on me already?”

“I…what?” Carlton is wide-eyed. He jerks up, then winces when the move hurts even through layers of pain meds.

Shawn hops back to the bedside, angles his head to one side.

“That hurts. And Henry was going to invite you over for barbecue on Sunday.”

“Henry?” Carlton licks his lips, then recovers. “You’re not funny, Shawn.”

It’s possibly the ‘Shawn’ that does it. Lassi is alive, had kissed him, and called him Shawn (twice).

Shawn breathes out again.

“And yet I’m still here without anyone hitting any nurse call buttons or telling me to get my tight ass in gear. Interesting.” His tone is playful, loud and happy, and he’s not even faking it. Really weird. Almost worth having to get wasted and cry onto Henry’s shoulder.

Almost. Because Henry had been right. Again. And now he’s never going to stop with the smug looks.

Lass seriously owes him here. Like, morning BJs and cooking dinner at least three times a week, owes him.

Shawn smoothes a hand over the scratchy blanket, then up to Lassi’s face, his jaw, which is just as rough. Like Shawn’s chin, because no way was he going home to shave until he had to.

Lassiter looks surprised, but only opens, then closes, his mouth. He does it again when Shawn slides and scoots himself carefully on top of the blanket and curls up onto his side.

Their faces are close, mouths nearly touching when he speaks.

“Hospitals have rules about this kind of thing, Spencer.” It’s like Lassi isn’t even _trying to get rid of him._

“Relax, it’s only for a few minutes. I need…” Shawn waves a hand, doesn’t finish. He could say something, but all he can think of is, “That’s right, Ice…Man…I am dangerous” and anyway, he’s not drunk, or high like Lassi, and it’s a lot harder to do this sober. Plus, lying here should be enough of a clue, even for Lassi.

The line between Lassi’s eyes is sort of cute. But it must hurt to focus this close. Shawn’s had concussions before, can remember.

“You’re serious?” Lassi finally shuts his eyes and Shawn hums, shakes his head.

“No, I lied. I plan on staying here until they kick me out.”

Lassiter just snorts a laugh, reopens his eyes.

“Why does that not surprise me?” He shifts, closes the distance. His lips are dry. Shawn licks them before he sighs and pulls back.

Carlton has one eyebrow up. “You don’t take anything seriously, do you?” he wonders, but his mouth twitches. It’s probably the drugs, or the blood loss, but he lets his head fall slowly back onto his pillow and doesn’t say anything else about Shawn being there. Like he doesn’t mind. A second later his eyes close. The line stays where it is between them. But he’s had a bad day.

“I feel like I should start singing ‘Take My Breath Away’.”

“Do it and I’ll shoot you.” Carlton doesn’t even open his eyes. Shawn wishes he had the heart to remind him that his gun is probably in Evidence right now.

He hums it anyway, then leans back over. He grins against Carlton’s mouth when Lassiter makes a low noise and mutters something about how Shawn never shaves. This kiss is short too, as short as the first one, and the second, but Shawn doesn’t mind. (They can officially make out later, somewhere private, when Carlton has enough blood flowing to make things interesting.)

He settles back a second later, not about to move, even for nurses with a Will Smith box set or any amount of scratchy blankets.

“You’re still here…” Carlton remarks quietly, amazed, pleased, when the silence goes on and Shawn angles his head over, shuts his eyes too.

“So are you.”


End file.
